Realm of Chaos: The New Dawn
by Ordrossal
Summary: Set in the post apocalyptic ruins of Merkava, New York, a remnant of unusual freedom fighters from the now toppled U.S government attempt to thwart the military efforts of 'The New Dawn' a rapidly growing Neo-Satanist group of extremists with close ties to Umbrella, set on gaining political influence throughout the Free States of America.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

'**Wake-Em and Shake-Em'**

In the post nuclear southern California suburb of Harrier, within the bowels of a big blue house, a T-830 endoskeleton lay peacefully on the frame of a bed in its low-power state. It's axial drive-motors giving off a slight hum as they awaited commands from the human cortex within the cyborg's intricate skull. Scattered among the bedroom were miscellaneous blue-prints, a pair of WM-27 phased plasma rifles, and a series of articles concerning the growing of human tissue. Suddenly, a tall, olive-skinned vixen dressed in a silk red nightgown bursts into the room, knocking an MG-3 machinegun against the Terminator's desktop computer. "Thomson...? General Draith is on the horn, he sounds like a nervous wreck, you need to come talk to him." She said drawing open the aluminum blinds and stooping down next to the motionless endoskeleton. "Really..? -Jill how do you pull an endo out of 'sleep mode' if they can't hear anything!" She called brushing her brown hair over her broad shoulders, somewhat annoyed.

_"Linda, I told you to call me 'mom' we're undercover remember..?"_ Jill called from the kitchen as Linda rolled her black eyes in a patronizing retort, "Mommy... How do I-, wake my 'deaf,' 'dumb,' I-Robot wannabe boyfriend when he can't 'hear' or 'feel' in 'sleep mode...?'"_ -"He doesn't have a nervous system anymore, you have to trigger one of his impact sensors, or move his arms around so the servos can pick up a change in his position. Dr. Isenberg spent all yesterday evening walking you through his systems, you should know this stuff." _Jill called back, as Linda let out an inward sigh and started at the T-830. "This relationship is more like owning a really fast car that get's shitty gas mileage and breaks down allot..." The girl commented, shaking the endoskeleton and moving its arms about in a goofy fashion. Suddenly, Thomson's grip tightens slightly around Linda's forearms, his LEDs dilating as the Terminator slowly sat up and panned around the room. "Draith is requesting you on Comms like yesterday..." Linda drones as the T-830 cants his head left and right, pointing to one of his auditory sensors.

Gently cupping the cyborg's chin in her hands, Linda comments "So you're awake now, but still deaf, and you can't read lips...?" Then kissing him on the forehead she adds, "You are soo a V6 Mustang on legs..." About 2minutes later the cyborg's sound driver and vocal unit came online. -_"Draith is on his way here right now guys, better wake em and shake em!" _Came Jill's voice as the house began to tremble at the sound of an incoming aircraft. "What? Why...? Isn't it friggin winter solstice or that one holiday with the dradles and the greedy white people with the hacky-sacs on their heads...?" Thomson asked as he tiredly threw a magnetized Nazi helmet over his head and rolled to his feet. "You mean Hanukah...?" Linda asked as she started for the door. "In 'Merica' we call it 'Christmas,' birth of baby Jesus...? Ring a bell?" She added as the couple's conversation was drowned out by a loud metallic series of thuds in the front yard. After the strangled whimpers of jet engines subside, Thomson leans out the bedroom window, peering around the corner of the house to find an army-green UDL-4 dropship on the driveway. General Draith stood at parade rest just under the nose-mounted Vulcan cannon, accompanied by a pair of Terranovan Marines armed with M41A pulse rifles.

"Wasn't that chap actually born in the spring..? I distinctly recall coming across an article about that..." Thomson said, lightly jogging up the hall, through the dining room and patting his mother on the head before proceeding through the kitchen and entering the garage. The endoskeleton stood at attention, saluting the General and falling to a parade rest. -"At ease soldier..." Draith said, synching a smile and starting forward in a nervous fashion. Thomson let's his arms fall to his side, the trailing links on what would be his collarbone, drooping as Linda leaned her weight on his shoulders. "I know it's close to Christmas and you'd rather be with family but I'm afraid an urgent situation has come to light in regards to our war against Umbrella's terrorism." The general said, handing Thomson a red file and letting the Terminator look it over.

"Five children have been ritualistically murdered in Queens, New York over the past week, their bodies were all recovered in an eviscerated state and in various locations within that particular city. Our analysts have uncovered evidence left on the bodies pointing to a Neo-Satanist movement that allegedly rose from the ashes of the 'Merkava' touchdown a couple years ago. The local law enforcement are circulating rumors that this organization 'The New Dawn' is being funded by the Umbrellian government, and is becoming a threat to national security." Draith finished as the endoskeleton held up a photo of a green-eyed man with curly hair.

"That man is Eric Stark, he is recruiting young adults and teens into this strange cult and spreading his political influence at an alarming rate." The General said pacing back and forth as Linda asked, "you're not gonna send us after this guy are you? He's got Charles Manson written all over him..." Leaning against the frame of the garage door Draith replies, "you guys survived Skynet, two outbreaks of the T-virus, the nuclear blast left behind by the Harrier launch and even the deployment of Project Jeremiah by the Knackamichie Corporation. Somehow I think you can handle a few teenagers with pocket knives and handguns." The General finished as both Thomson and Linda thought in silence. Before either could answer, Jill swaggers into the room sipping a glass of bourbon. "Well, see, every time you say 'it's gonna be a piece of cake' we get our asses handed to us and barely make it out alive... You are seriously gonna get these kids killed one day..." Jill finished, heading back to the kitchen before Draith could reply.

"_You're not sending us after this guy… You're NOT sending us after this guy..." _Thomson chants, waving a medallion across the general's face and canting his head in anticipation. "Thomson? Stop waving that thing around like a Jedi or something. You're going and that's final." Draith finished, snatching the medallion from the cyborg's frail hands. Thomson's left LED contracted in frustration; -_"that stupid telepath said it would work..!" _ The T-830 muttered through gritted teeth, pulling a laptop out of a nearby drawer, flipping it open and typing in a few digits onto the keyboard. Draith and Linda are startled as a missile shoots up from behind the house, arching towards the southern horizon. -"what did you just do...?" Linda asked as the General crossed his arms with a low chuckle. "I just fired my new Nike missile defense system at the residence of a wiccan shop owner in Chino Hills..." The Terminator said nonchalantly, shutting the laptop and resuming his attention on Draith. "Murder...? Really? Over thirty bucks...?" Linda asked flicking the cyborg's forehead as he replied, "Oh, calm down Lindsay Lohan, the warhead is empty, it'll just make a mess of her front lawn, and maybe crush her car. No harm done..."

"Oh yeah Crippletron, and what if she's in her car when the missile hits...?" Linda asked as Draith arced a brow in agreement. "Honey you know how I feel about 'thinking ahead,' -it's what old couples do when they know they're gonna die soon, we're young, live on the edge! Crush your enemies!" The endoskeleton replied, starting towards the kitchen door. -"when do we leave..." Linda sighed as a faint explosion is heard in the distance and Thomson lets out a hiccup of laughter. "One hour... And Thomson...? You'll need to scramble up a team, we'll meet on the TRM-Auriga, where your men will be thoroughly briefed about the operation. -Got any Beer...?" The General concluded as Linda rolled her eyes replying, "in the fridge bottom shelf..." climbing into a hatch on the garage floor.

As Draith and Jill chat over drinks in the kitchen, Thomson lazily walks up a wooden staircase and onto a balcony lined with a series of doors, stopping to face the first one. "Demetri you up..!" He called through the door with a light knock. After receiving no answer the Terminator jiggles the knob finding it to be locked. "Hey Hulk!? Stop shaggin and answer the damn door..!" He came again, backing up to kick the door in. Before he could strike, he catches a glimpse of an infrared beam sweeping him from behind. Turning to find Jill in the foyer hip-aiming an M-82 Barrett rifle in his direction. "Break one more door in the house and so help me God, I will blow your little head off..." She said in a strange over-patronizing tone, ripping a sarcastic smile as Thomson threw his hands in the air. "Damn... Schizophrenia much...?" The T-830 said as the woman drops her aim and walks off. Resuming his attention on the door, Thomson knocks once more, positioning the briefing paper to hit the titan in the face as he answered the door. Without any further comment the endoskeleton proceeds to the next door reading the note posted above the doorknob.

-'Dear Crippletron, overheard you speaking with the brass this morning and felt compelled to swallow a cup of hydrogen peroxide. Will be in hospital all day with the shits, good luck and don't die. Love corporal Hicks and Sidney...'

-"Awe poop... Smart son of a bitch..." Thomson murmured, picking up slight vibrations from Linda's bedroom. Inching the door open, he is seemingly unnoticed by a young and very short Yautja warrior. The pubescent Predator is found relaxing on Linda's bed in a seemingly bored posture. He repeatedly pulled back the slide on Linda's USP .45, ejecting the ammo onto the polished wood floor. The T-830 thought for a second then, still remaining unnoticed, letting the briefing-paper drift onto the Predator's face, and starting for the exit. -"Cool another mission, is it a bug hunt..?" The Predator ranted, tarring the paper from his masked face. Stopping in the doorframe Thomson replies, "maybe..." "-Is it a stand-off fight?" The Yautja retorted, shooting up from the bed and starting for the foyer. The endoskeleton shrugged, muttering profanity under his breath before replying in a patronizing tone, _"Read it Poe... Remember-, A-E-I-O-U, are vowels..."_

-"But-but I don't like to read!" Poe whined as Thomson replied on his way downstairs, _-"Then pretend to, and follow me."_ "Whatever..." Poe replies following the T-830. Thomson and Poe enter the kitchen area just as the dropship is taking off, waiting a minute for the smoke to clear before entering the garage and pulling open the hatch in the floor. Sparks flew from Thomson's hands and feet as he slid down the ladder, being knocked off balance slightly as the Predator lands behind him on the metal platform. As the two lightly jogged through a battery of computer servers, Thomson noting the 'No Running' sign on his way into the missile-control room, the T-830 trips on Linda, who was kneeling down, to put on her bra. Thomson slides face- flat across the grated floor like a rag doll, hitting a pile of 380mm shells. Poe, at this point distracted by an empty Nike missile gantry adjacent to the platform, trips on a round that strays off into the hallway. The Yautja back-flipped twice in the air before landing on his rear and moaning _-"awe I broke my ass."_ -His voice muffled under his mask as Linda bursts out in laughter. Thomson's chrome head pokes up from the ammunition dump, Linda helping him up and kissing the side of his articulate head before asking, "Are you okay?" Before the Terminator could answer, Poe taps her on the shoulder, yelling upon her turnaround, -"Oh yeah those are nice! I think my ass just went numb because the blood-flow's goin somewhere else!" Then, like a child, the Predator darts in the opposite direction, disappearing between an isle of server computers.

After a brief pause in breathing, Linda realized she was bare-chested, slipping a black, leather low-cut blouse over her bare breasts as Thomson restacked the fallen tank shells. A few minutes later he tiredly trudged to the bedroom of yet another Terminator. "Bud...! Why does my lobby look like an explosion went-off in it!?" The T-830 griped as he kicked the base of Bud's bedroom door. Nearly ripping the door off its hinges, the T-800 infiltrator pokes his head out of the doorframe with a subtle "hmm...?" In the background, Thomson notices a pint-sized endoskeleton jumping up and down on the bed as it watched 'Blues Clues' on an old television. Turning his attention back to the hulking biker Thomson asks, "where'd the other half of your fuckin face go...? Do you have any idea how time consuming and expensive it is to grow human skin for a T-800...?" -"Yes... I was playing Ping-Pong boom..." Bud droned as one of Thomson's LEDs contracted in frustration. "Ping pong what...?" -"Ping pong boom, a sport in which two to four players pull the pin on a hand-grenade and hit it back and forth with table-tennis rackets..." The T-800 replied as Thomson scratched his head in confusion.

"So what's the point of the game...?" He asked after a brief pause. -"don't be the poor bastard with the grenade on his side of the net when it detonates..." The biker replied, his voice absent of emotion. The T-830 sighs, cupping the ridge of his nose as he asks, "-and where the hell would you get such a dipshit concept for a game...?" The Infiltrator silently turns to point at the bouncing infant-sized endoskeleton in front of the television. "Really...? Seriously...?" Thomson asked crossing his arms and letting his clavicle trailing-links sag as he awaited an answer. Bud nods silently... "Sooo, you're tryin ta tell me a bobble-head Terminator told you to play ping-pong with a live grenade and you actually listened..." Thomson commented, having mild difficulties uncrossing his arms as his actuators become hinged in his elbow-joint assemblies.

"Affirmative..." The T-800 replied just as Thomson frees his arms from themselves. -"you're just the kind of stupid we need..." The T-830 mumbles, handing Bud a copy of the mission briefing and starting in the direction of the dropship hangars. _"Can you please patch up your skin-sheath and either wear a set of sunglasses or find another LED cover for your eye...? Thanks..."_ The cyborg called from down the corridor. About 30minutes later the crew convened in the dropship hangar, shielding their faces as the approaching vertical-takeoff-landing craft (VTAL) set-down on the metal platform and deployed its cargo ramp. "Damn Jill's cooking made me gassy..." Poe commented as the group started up the loading ramp. "Really now..." Thomson comments, snatching Linda's cell-phone from her back pocket with a flirtatious slap on her rear. "You say that like it's a good thing..." The Yautja drones as the crew settles into the vacant troop harnesses along the inner hull.

The endoskeleton silently probes the keypad with his pinky finger, putting it to the side of his head and waiting. _"This is Hicks' phone, Sidney speaking."_ A woman said over the line. "Uh hey Sid it's Tommy boy, put Kyle on the phone will ya..?" The T-830 said waiting for a reply and putting the phone on loudspeaker. _"This is Hicks..."_ Came the voice of a young man. Keeping silent Thomson motions Poe to come over, putting the phone to the Yautja's butt and silently counting down from three. After Poe rips a long high-pitched fart into the receiver, Thomson nonchalantly closes the flip-phone handing it back to Linda with a low, wheezing snicker. Within seconds hiccups of laughter escape from the group, Linda slapping the back of Thomson's skull commenting "you're getting too old for toilet humor, grow up. -Now my phone's gonna smell." -"Had to... He ditched suck-duty and now we're a man short." The endoskeleton laughed, strapping himself into a vacant harness just as the cargo ramp retracts and the ship takes flight for the Auriga.

Another half hour went by before the dropship docked with the Assault Carrier Earth's high orbit. The crew stepped off the cargo ramp in a military fashion gathering around a cluster of crates adjacent to an armored-personnel-carrier. "Okay ladies and plus one girl," the instructor began, -"this is a surgical strike not a chainsaw-massacre, don't bring any attention to yourselves, keep hidden and in large crowds and only take what you can carry, that means no air-strikes, no-tanks, no-APCs, and no heavy stuff..." The instructor said, snatching up a clip-board and glancing at its data briefly. "Damn... I left my handgun at home..." Linda commented, leaning her weight on a nearby crate as she continued to gripe. "How are we supposed to get around the city walk..? The Merkava touchdown has half the state covered in a radioactive cloud which tends to like rain acid... There are hostile gangs in the area, militias, bandits, the cops are probably corrupt. I don't know about the rest of you, but I ain't endin up in another lab." The girl finished sliding to a sitting position against the crate.

"Shit she's right they might need an APC for protection against mobs or extremists groups..." the General interrupted as Thomson butts in, -"this is my ship, my stuff and that's 'my' gun Lieutenant Gorman... Put it back on my desk before I light you on fire and piss on your ashes... Sir..." The endoskeleton said politely, the instructor placing a chromed .50cal Desert Eagle handgun on the ground before continuing. "Thomson tell me again why you refuse to wear a skin-sheath over that metal..?" Thomson rolls his LEDs replying, "first off, it takes a minimal of 40days to adequately graph living tissue onto an 800 series endoskeleton, it's not like I can slip into a meat-tux and skip off into the sunset. Second, because of my 'human' cortex, I suffer from 'phantom injuries' which only present themselves when I'm graphed with human tissue making me inert in combat..." The T-830 finished. -"sorry da hear that man. Regardless you've just volunteered to be central command on the ground. Though I'm not sure how people will take a WWII German battle tank crawling the streets of Brooklyn." The instructor said as a few low chuckles are heard from the crew.

"Alright lock-it up children... Our analysts at the Cheyenne mountain facility found a commonality between all five victims. They were all born on December 16th and suffered from various levels of autism. After running a survey on all the children within the state-line born on that particular date, we located one last child, who as far as we know is still alive and kicking." Gorman said, beginning to pace back and forth. "Her name is Cody O' Connor, she's 7 years old, lives with her aunt, Maggie O' Connor who works as a nurse at the local hospital. Biological mother is a one Jenna O' Connor, and woe... She's got quite a wrap-sheet..." Gorman said shaking his head with a chuckle as he continued looking on and off of his clipboard.

-"The residence is well outside the radioactive zone from the Merkava touchdown, so that should make things a bit easier on you guys. The O' Connors are Catholic so we've plotted a few possible Perishes in the area where planting hidden cameras and phone-taps might be wise. The Brass believe that using this little girl as bait will lead us to the organization responsible for these murders, and if it 'is' who we think it is, we'll be able to expose the crimes of The New Dawn, break the flow of funds from Umbrella Europe and crush Eric Stark's political influence on the Free States." The instructor finished setting the clipboard on a crate and pausing for questions. "Linda, I know you've got at least 'one' gripe, so lay it on me..." Gorman said as the nubile woman stepped forward and began. "First off, if we know it was probably Eric Stark, why don't we just kick-in his front door, riddle him full of holes, burn the body and be done with it...?"

After a brief silence Thomson's outburst of laughter becomes contagious, Gorman gesturing everyone to pipe down as he began. -"There are two problems with that, number one: we haven't the slightest idea where this guy is hold up, he's a fucking ghost. Number two: even if we 'did' find him, he's a celebrity, killing him without solid evidence would only make him a martyr for his own cause and we'd lose the entire eastern seaboard to The New Dawn. -That's means Umbrella Europe on our doorstep, and no more resistance..." The instructor finished, glancing at his wristwatch. -"Why don't we just nuke everything in the mouth...!" The Auriga's onboard A.I said with enthusiasm. -"I agree with the ship..." Came Thomson as Draith retorts, "of course 'you' do, you're the one that built the damn A.I..."

-"Hey, Father is his own fuggin island, his chi is like totally separate from mine I promise..." Thomson replied as the rest of the crew nodded with smirks. "If even a single ICBM leaves one of those pods before my say-so I'm gonna have my daughter graph a giant pink dick over your endoskeleton and kick you outta your own airlock..!" Draith barked as the hangar fell silent. "That's better... Now, Poe...? You're probably the stealthiest unit we've got so you will tail the little girl and in the event of a kidnapping, 'moderate' the situation. Interfere as little as possible as to not tip off The New Dawn of our involvement. Demetri, you were in the Nemesis project back in Umbrella's golden days and will easily pass as one of the many victims of the Merkava touchdown 2 years back. Just wrap your face in bandages and keep to the alleys, moving freely only at night or during periods of low civilian traffic. Keep track of Poe's position once he links up with the little girl, should the situation escalate before we can collect enough data, you will act as his primary means of heavy support." Draith says as Demetri and Poe give a compliant nod.

"Alright, time for the fun stuff..! -Tech talk...!" Thomson says swaggering to the front of the group and fanning the General to the side as he began. "Bud...! front n' center, I got a present for you..." The T-830 said, dropping a small vial in Bud's gloved hand. "This bug was derived from the same nanotechnology as the Sentinel drones currently crewing my old heavycruiser Norad III. It's programmed to painlessly embed itself into any given human's scalp where it can promptly convert vibrations off the person's skull into legible audio, and relay it to our battle-net. Happy birthday you frakkin Cylon..." The cyborg joked as Bud silently cinched a half-smile, stepping back in line with the others. "Linda..? Since you're a multitasker, you will act as our eyes and ears monitoring the spy-cam feeds and radar from the APC. You can also listen in on Maggie's frequency if you see fit to do so. Sound fair...?" The endoskeleton asked, noting Gorman as he tapped his wrist watch and started for the far-end of the vast centrifuge of hangars.

"Question, about the APC... Any upgrades...?" Linda asked as Draith jogged to catch up with Gorman. "The APC's heavy and inefficient twin diesel engines have been replaced by a pair of lightweight co-axial drive motors. Despite being electric, they produce a combined 2500 wheel horsepower as opposed to the twin Henschels which only put down about 1400hp. Sky's the limit for top-speed, just remember that the rig itself is still around 25tons and heavy things need a long breaking distance. It's all-wheel drive so handling should be pretty decent, rims are titanium-alloy with a half percentage of Coltan, so if the tires burst for whatever reason, or you need to cross a river of low temp lava, you can ride on the bare rims for miles. Armor unfortunately is the same 2inch thick woven-venlar crap with the foam packed hull lining-, it can take falls pretty well but I wouldn't trust it against anything that can hurt an Abrams tank..." Thomson finished as Demetri asked, "What's it's power source, and why does it look bigger...?"

"The motors are powered by several hydrogen fuel cells, located under the floor-lining near the forward turret assembly. Aside from being shielded inside a triple-armored subassembly, and the implementation of several software fail-safes, a rupture in one of the hydrogen cells will result in a blast equivalent to a 16.8kiloton nuclear warhead. As far as the size, I had to raise the floor-lining a bit to fit the all-wheel-drive components correctly, and lengthen the chassis so it would also have the same storage capacity regardless. I also took the time to have the sentinels re-design bigger dropships to carry the bigger line of APCs... " Thomson concluded, heading across the docking centrifuge towards the Norad III. _"Wheels up in 10minutes...!"_ Called a Terranovan marine, the group of resistance fighters scrambling into the APC and speeding across the platform to meet up with Draith and Gorman.


	2. Chapter 2: Insertion

**Chapter 2**

**Insertion**

At approximately 6:00PM eastern time, four dropships depart from the TRM Auriga, and join up with a mixed fleet of warships. A pair of heavycruisers, Blackhammer and Norad III, break-off from the fleet in high-orbit, diving for the planet's surface with the four dropships not far behind. Dropship one and two touchdown in a scrap yard in an abandoned district just outside Merkava's quarantine zone. -"You two cut this reconnaissance area in half, and meet up at 0800 hours to compare notes..." Gorman said over the battle-net as the APC and a Charcoal-gray Tiger tank disembark from either of the deployed cargo ramps. After the vehicles disappear from immediate view, a platoon of Terranovan marines dressed in orange jumpsuits rush out of the cargo-holds, quickly establishing a perimeter around the pair of dropships. The entrances to the scrap yard are mined with claymores and automated sentry-guns are placed within feet of both ships. -"Dropship one and two secure Lieutenant..!" A soldier barked as Gorman stepped off the cargo platform with his USP-.45 in the low-ready position.

"We still need to scout a suitable building within the vicinity to setup our forward operating base." The lieutenant said, holstering his weapon and squinting at a billboard near the entrance. _"Pikey's Scrap Yard...?"_ He murmured as another trooper stopped in his path with a salute. "Sir, the APC is reporting a security breach in our operation. Two civilians caught a glimpse of our ships touching-down and the troop carrier leaving the yard." The marine said standing at parade rest. "Fuck..." Gorman grunted, cupping his ear as he spoke into a throat mic. "This is Site-A to Blackhammer-Actual, do you read...!" Some static is heard over the earpiece before an officer answers, "This is Blackhammer-Actual, go ahead Site-A." -"Dropships 1 and 2 were sighted during touchdown by two civilians that we believe may be still in the area, requesting a thermal grid survey of all buildings in the vicinity over...!" Gorman barked into his throat-mic, dismissing the two marines with a nod.

About 170,000ft above the landing site, heavycruiser Blackhammer hovered in place, its dark hull-platting shrouding it in the blackness of night. The onboard A.I made minuet adjustments to the pitch and angle as it peered down at the district with a battery of powerful thermal-telescopes. On the ground, now about a half-mile from the scrap yard, Linda pulls the APC to the side of the road. Sliding out of the driver's seat, the girl hurries over to the network of computer-screens right of the sliding hatch. _"Wow, looks like we hit the jackpot..."_ She murmured, zooming-in on a large cluster of heat signatures within the vicinity of the landing site. After carefully studying the grid, she pulls up a map of the city and identifies the structure. "Ragna Rock night club... Hello insurgency..." She adds in a patronizing tone, reaching for the radio receiver. "This is den-mother to Site-A, I've got an unidentified group of heavily-armed civilians held up in the old Ragna Rock nightclub. They appear to have a female captive bound in the main chamber. Over...?"

"This is Site-A, I copy den-mother do not engage, I repeat do not engage. Resume reconnaissance and meet up with Psyko at 0800hours over n' out..." Gorman replied as Linda hopped in the driver's seat and continued up the road. Back at the landing site, Gorman paces back and forth cursing under his breath as he ponders about the current predicament. Then, as he paused to light a cigar, he notices Bud tinkering with a faulty sentry-gun near the nose of dropship 2. "Bud...!" He calls, jogging over as the T-800 pauses momentarily. -"Head over to the Ragna-Rock with a Smartgun and clear it out will ya...?" The lieutenant says nonchalantly, blowing smoke from his nostrils. "Affirmative..." The Terminator drones, ripping open one of the steel weapon-crates and drawing up an M-54 Smartgun. After quickly inspecting the light-machinegun and grabbing an extra drum-magazine, the T-800 silently makes for the far-end of the scrap yard, destined for the Ragna Rock...

Meanwhile, within the groaning structure of the gothic nightclub, two acolytes armed with AR-15s stood over a hatch in the middle of the main chamber. The two pleasantly puffed on joints of marijuana, occasionally squinting at a blaring television-set hanging over the bar at the far end of the room. "Hey Roman, did you hear about the that pair of newbloods that came in earlier freakin out about a couple military jets...?" The Acolyte laughed, playfully shoving the other with the muzzle of his gun. "What..? This close to the quarantine zone...? No way... Stop dickin around Toby..." Roman replied, taking a knee by the floor-hatch. "No seriously, they even blew up Tailor's phone while he was boning that bitch we got tied up in the crawlspace. -Said they saw an armored car leaving Pikey's scrap yard with an escort of mean-lookin dudes in orange jumpsuits and serious hardware..." Toby added as Roman pulled open the hatch, and threw his drink on a bound, pail-looking brunet. The nubile girl spasms out of cold-sleep, breaking out in strangled whimpers as the freezing liquid sent debilitating aches into her bones.

The two acolytes break out in a maniacal crescendo of laughter, falling backwards as the hatch-door slammed shut. "That shit get's funnier every time..!" Roman says nearly discharging his weapon. -"Hey you think if we drop the temperature down there low enough I could snap one of her limbs...?" Toby laughed. _"not before I fuck her in half first...!" _Another acolyte called from across the room. The sporadic laughter is broken abruptly by a pounding at the front entrance. The room falls silent as Roman traverses a length of corridor, ending in the lobby and approaching a set of steel doors with caution. "what's the password...!" He called taking a knee and adjusting the rear sights of his rifle. After a brief silence, a man with a strong Austrian accent replies, "I'm a friend of Chimmy's..." Roman looks back at the other acolytes lounging about the corridors on either side of the reception desk calling, "which one of you fuckers goes by the name of Timmy...!?" After a few seconds of exchanged glares among the group, one of the younger acolytes steps forward.

"I'm Timothy..." The teen says in an unsure tone, jogging up to the door. "Whadoya want..?" He says through the set of steel doors. "Hey Chimmy I have a joke for you..." The Austrian voice replies in a pleasant tone. "Man I aint got time fo dis shit... Get outta here old man this is private property..!" Tim scolds, starting back to the main chamber. "No wai-wai-wait... Humor me Chimmy...! Common...! Don't be such a girlyman..!" The Austrian voice called back as the acolyte swaggered closer to the door with his Winchester drawn. "Alright old man... But if it aint funny, I'm gonna shoot you in da dick with a pair of buckshot..." -"Knock-knock..." The Austrian drones. _"Who's there...?" _Tim and Roman mocked in unison. _"Imcomminin..."_ The Austrian voice replied in an equally mocking tone. "Imcomminin who...?" Timothy asked now a bit thrown off... _"I'm commin in with the Vaselin..!" _ -The steel doors buckle from their hinges, one of them pinning Timothy on his back.

The T-800 steps forward with his jutting weapon, sending entrails and brain-tissue squirting out from under the door as he pressed it into the tile. Before the other acolytes could react, the Terminator opens fire, searing several of them in half with the weapon's explosive 10mm munitions. Several others retreat into the corridors on either side of the now obliterated front desk. The Terminator pauses, allowing the gun to track the runners through the wall with its infrared, -firing a short burst into the drywall behind the desk and listening attentively as a crescendo of fleshy thuds and splashing liquids is carried up the corridor. As the Terminator scanned the room, continuing his tactical assessment, a pair of sporadic blood-curdling screams are heard from down the left corridor. _"Mama... I want my mama...!"_ One of them cried out in strangled, gargling, whimpers. Swinging a left into the hallway, the T-800 kicks-in a sturdy-looking door, ripping a circuit-breaker off the wall as he steps into a small electric-room.

Suddenly the lights shut off, shrouding the nightclub in darkness and sending the small army of acolytes into a frenzied panic. Blindly putting the Smartgun around the corner, Bud fires a couple busts up the dark corridor, the pair of strangled whimpers end abruptly as the weapon tracks both wounded teens. -Bud stepping out just in time to see the upper torsos burst into a bone-strewn paste. Utilizing his infrared to cut through the darkness, he pauses at a pair of acolytes as they dart across the corridor with their assault rifles blaring. The Terminator fires a jittery burst from his Smartgun, watching in awe as the tracers ark toward the moving targets, demolishing a four-foot section of drywall before sending an eviscerated upper-torso cart-wheeling into the hallway with its entrails on fire. As Bud creeps forward, another enemy comes up over the top of an overturned table with an AR-15. The T-800 opens up on the Smartgun, converting the table and the shooter into a splinter-strewn lump of crackling flesh. Rounding the corner, he then jabs the muzzle of the weapon into the belly of an unsuspecting acolyte, casting the teens entrails all over the corridor in tangled patterns as he fires a burst.

The Terminator pauses, watching the heated barrel sear its way through the nubile corpse, the skull finally busting as the cadaver slid off the fluted barrel in a grotesque, steaming mess. Approaching a flimsy-looking door at the end of the hall, Bud pauses as the infrared beam from the weapon's tracker dances-about in a sporadic fashion. His auditory sensors pick up whispers through the door, sampling the recordings several times before identifying the environment as a large chamber. Buckling the doorknob, the Terminator bursts through the door with his Smartgun blaring, the blinding glare from the weapon's muzzle sending panicked acolytes diving behind the furniture scattered about the candle-lit chamber. Within the floor-hatch just below the haphazard of overturned furniture and eye-strewn paste, the female captive cries silently. Clatters of strange gunfire reverberate from the chamber above, -a thick viscous paste seeping through the cracks in the sealing and running down her back and cleavage with an eerie warm sensation.

Suddenly she is scared out of her drug-induced daze and into a lucid state as the hatch above her is riddled with holes. When the gunfire subsides, the chains that once bound her hands break away from the weakened ceiling, sending her plummeting to the damp, cobblestone below. Still lucid from the adrenaline coursing through her veins, the nubile girl pushes herself to get up. The rays of flickering light that bled through from the firefight beyond the tattered hatch, gave way to a sense of hope as she ascended a small rusted ladder. Using all the strength she could muster, the young captive pushed up on the hatch, dragging herself onto the chaotic dance-floor and rolling on her back in a panting frenzy. Before she could assess her environment, the captive is knocked out cold as a passing acolyte brings a boot across her right jaw-, the force sending her unconscious body rolling several feet as the firefight raged on.

The T-800's torso danced-about as the enemy tracers peeled away at the living tissue encasing its endoskeleton. The Terminator returns fire, sweeping the neckline of the acolytes in the foreground with a long burst. The finale of bursting upper-torsos fling shards of superheated skull-tissue and human teeth into rear fire-line behind the bar counter, their bodies twisting into the far-wall in a morbid ballet. Behind the decimated remains of the bar, Toby hugs his empty AR-15 to his chest, desperately sifting through the steaming entrails of his fellow acolytes in search of spare magazines. The teen notices an eerie silence, pausing his gory scavenger-hunt and peeking around the corner of a twisted barstool. Suddenly a muzzle-flash erupts from the far end of the candle-lit chamber, Toby staggering backwards as a bullet grazes the ridge of his nose, sending the digit violently twisting off of his face with his top-lip in tow.

Near the center of the room, the captive is scared awake by the blood-curdling screams of the wounded acolyte. The girl rolls to a sitting position, noting the sinking feeling in her chest as she turned her attention to the bar. Effortlessly, the Terminator grabs Toby by the head, throwing him against a pillar and out of view. Motionless as a statue, the captive watched in horror as the T-800 fired its massive weapon into the pillar, just inches above Toby's head. The jittery bursts sear through the structure like tissue paper, unearthing floorboards as the explosive shells passed through the opposite side of the structure. Then, tossing the expended ammo-drum to the side, the Terminator calmly rounds the corner of the pillar, giving it a seemingly effortless shove near its fracture and stepping back. _"Oh my God..." _The young girl chokes out, bursting into tears as the massive piece of cement topples over, crushing the flailing teen and sending large intestines and cadavers bursting from the cloud of asbestos. Before the smoke settles, another fire-line of acolytes take up positions on the surrounding balconies, aiming assault rifles and 12gage automatic shotguns over the aging handrails.

The Terminator calmly changed out the drum on his light-machinegun, seemingly uninterested in the fire-line of fearful teens above. Now panting in terror, the female captive pulls the upper half of a torso over her body, wiping blood all over her face and lying still-, hoping that she would be overlooked by the jackals on the balcony. Closing the feed-cover on his weapon, and pulling-back the charging handle, the T-800 turns his attention to the overhead balconies. The acolytes open fire, the Terminator stumbling backwards as the array of bullets batter against his hyper-alloy chassis. Before he could regain his balance, a stray bullet punctures the Smartgun's ammo drum. The encased ammunition discharged at random, some of which landing in feet of the captive as she scrambled out from under the now burning cadaver. With his back to the enemy, the T-800 reached into the burst-end of the drum, breaking the internal plastic ammo-belt and tossing it aside before the small fire could consume the rest of his ammo.

At that point the acolytes began to withdraw fire from the overhead balconies to reload, relying solely on a pair of young females armed with M-249s to provide cove-fire. With an abrupt turnabout, Bud sweeps the pair of machine-gunners with short, erratic, bursts, searing both teens in half and puncturing their box-magazines. As the pair of disfigured torsos crumple to the floor in ruin, the munitions cook-off, riddling nearby acolytes with holes, and breaking their fire-line in half. The interwoven planks that made up the balconies explode into deadly shrapnel-clouds of wood and human tissue, being accompanied by asbestos as the Terminator continued to fire. The female captive fell into a trance as the hailstorm of vermillion-confetti rained down onto the corpse-strewn dance floor. The air thickens with the scent of gun-powder and charred flesh-, bringing about an onset of nausea. Overwhelmed by the morbid display of fleshly fireworks, she blacks out for a moment. The nubile girl awakes in what seems like seconds later, looking up at the flesh-lined remains of the balcony and then across the chamber at the Terminator. On the far side of the chamber, Bud is seen tossing his expended weapon to the ground as acolytes move-in from the kitchen-wing of the facility with guns drawn.

Before the Terminator could react, a pair of ballistic taser-needles puncture his flesh-sheath, the cyborg crumpling to its knees as the fire-line of blaring assault rifles close on him. When their magazines run dry and the taser-gun appears to short-out and catch fire, the massive biker lay face-down in a smoking ruin. Its metal endoskeleton hardly noticeable beneath the morbid Picasso of blood-soaked leather and mutilated tissue on his back. Dropping to a knee, one of the acolytes feels for a pulse, looking up at his squad-leader with a confident nod. On the far side of the chamber, the female captive slowly backed towards a nearby exit. As she did so, her breathing became rapid and stifled, the drugs in her system afflicting her with vertigo. Losing her balance, the captive stumbles into one of the few surviving tables, toppling the furniture and breaking the silence like a whip.

A chatter of voices erupts on the far side of the chamber as the group of heavily-armed teens take notice with extreme prejudice, -"On your knees whore..!" An acolyte bellowed as the squad advanced on the helpless girl. Crawling to her feet, she drunkenly makes for the exit, her soiled pair of knee-high doc-martins weighing her down with their thick soles. A clatter of gunfire erupts behind her, the floorboards exploding around her feet and sending wooden splinters into her face as she spun to the ground in pain. When she looks up again, she finds herself starring down the barrel of a Benelli 12gage, surrounded by the brooding faces of her ex-comrades. At that point the lights begin to come on again as power is restored to the nightclub via backup generators. _"Where did he go...?" _the girl said under her breath, taking left and right for the missing biker.

The acolytes roughly bound the girl with a pair of zip-ties, pausing in a state of panic as they realized the T-800 was not where they had left it. "Bullshit, no way anyone could survive that..! Spread-out and find that motherfucker..." The squad-leader said in a raspy voice, his breathing growing shallow as he shouldered his Benelli M4. The female captive sighs inwardly as most of the acolytes form a staggered line behind their leader, and begin sweeping the upper balconies with green-lasers and flashlights. Determined to escape, she takes notice of the snub-nose .38 revolver holstered on the belt of an unsuspecting acolyte. When the guard turns in the opposite direction, the captive lunges for the open-holster, pulling back the pistol's hammer with her soiled thumbs and firing a slug into the back of his head. The guard's body goes limp, crumpling to the floor with a muffled thud as the rest of the squad opens fire.

Stepping cautiously as tracers whistled passed her head, the captive made her way across the haphazard of broken furniture and strewn corpses, the glowing exit-sign drowning out the clatters of rifle-fire haunting her from behind. The fleeing victim is stopped in her tracks as the floorboards arch from under her soiled pair of knee-high Doc-Martins, throwing her backwards like a ragdoll. She instinctively raises her pistol in fright, briefly forgetting the approaching acolytes as a shimmering pair of florescent-red eyes linger within the cloud of asbestos. By now the firing had ceased, magazines could be heard hitting the floor simultaneously as the squad of cultists reload their rifles in the background. The nubile girl drops her pistol as the Terminator steps forward with a Benelli Auto-loader in one hand and an AR-15 in the other. Before anyone could react, the T-800 opens fire, both guns blaring as several squad-members twist to the floor with head-wounds and their comrades scramble for cover.

Picking up her .38, the captive crawls passed the seemingly uninterested cyborg, sprinting for the exit as fast as her legs would carry her. As she is in feet of the exit, another acolyte rounds the doorframe, maneuvering her into a choke-hold and using her as a body-shield. Then, taking aim with his Berretta 92F, the teen fires a well-placed shot into the side of Bud's head, pausing with a frustrated grunt as the grinning skull drops its shotgun and starts forward with an AR-15. The acolyte fires several more shots into the cyborg's face, tightening his hold on the stifling girl as the T-800's exposed LEDs and mutilated facial-tissue strike the boy stiff with fear. When the Terminator goes to fire his rifle one-handed, the AR-15 lets out a distinctive click. The cyborg looks down at the weapon, pulling its charging handle and hitting its forward-assist switch to no avail. "looks like you've got a jam freak-show, time ta die...!" The acolyte smiled, being taken by a false sense of superiority as he rapidly fired rounds into the Terminator's face.

When the slide on his pistol locks back the boy's heart sinks in his chest, the captive flailing-about as she struggled with his tight grasp. Calmly spitting a metal slug onto the floor, the T-800 grips the weapon by the end of its barrel, sending the rifle tumbling through the air like a tomahawk. The synthetic-stock and buffer-tube burst the teen's face like a grape, the impact sending both him and the female captive back-flipping through the doorframe as the lodged weapon discharged into the ceiling on full-auto. Now free of his grasp, the nubile captive rolls to her feet, the rusted linkage of pipes on the ceiling bursting into flames. By the time she notices the sour smell of methane, she is thrown backwards again as a small explosion sends debris crashing down on the doorway, filling the corridor with soot. When the smoke dissipates somewhat, shrouding the corridor in a light haze of fog, she takes notice of the assault-rifle sticking out of the emaciated human-head, its flashlight flickering like a strobe as she inches forward.

Gripping the gun by its warm barrel, she braces herself against the wall of debris with her boot, pulling on the rifle with all her strength. She lets out a shriek as the head detaches from the necrotized pile of flesh, launching off the stock of the carbine and hitting the floor behind her with a fleshy-thud as it rolled to a stop at the next bend. _"Disgusting..."_ She said in a jittery voice, planting the stock of the rifle between her enclosed boots and rubbing her binds against its bayonet-lug. After a minute, the stubborn zip-ties break apart, the girl then wiping some brain-tissue off stock and shining its flashlight on her surroundings. She quietly creeps forward, swinging left and traversing a long door-lined corridor. Aside from a few pieces of old furniture, the hall was deserted and bared no signs of a firefight. Faint clatters of gunfire could be heard from somewhere in the groaning structure as she neared a bend in the hallway. Making a right and sweeping the path with her rifle, the captive pauses in awe of the morbid display in the lobby.

Stepping carefully, the girl maneuvered around the haphazard maze of broken furniture and eviscerated, headless, torsos-, staggering a bit as blood-stained shell-casings rolled under the soles of her boots. The cool wind sends aches into her bones as she steps out onto the sidewalk and takes in both directions, finding no sign of acolytes. Then, tightly gripping the rifle by its carrying handle, the young girl takes advantage of a temporary adrenaline-rush and sprints for the city-lights on the horizon. Back at the landing site, Gorman sat atop a haphazard pile of wrecked muscle-cars, rolling a cigar between his teeth as he peered through a pair of binoculars. It had been nearly an hour and the T-800 had not reported in yet. "You know what...? Fuck-it I'll bite.." The lieutenant said cupping his ear as he spoke into the throat-mic. "Site-A to Blackhammer do you read? Over..." There was a crackle of static before a flight-officer replies, "Site-A this is Blackhammer, we read you loud and clear..." -"I dispatched the T-800 to clear out the Ragna Rock nightclub about an hour ago. Requesting an additional thermal survey of the area to confirm his status, over..."

Gorman replied, glancing down at the landing-site and then at his wristwatch. "Copy that Site-A, relaying thermal images to Denmother now, over and out..." The officer replied, Gorman tucking the mic under his collar and waiting patiently. "Blackhammer to Site-A, we regret to inform you that an attack on the Cheyenne Mountain facility via Umbrellian forces is now underway, all ships are being recalled to Colorado Springs to provide support and evacuate staff personnel. The TRM Auriga is currently out of communications range and will not be available for another 18hours. Looks like you're on your own lieutenant, ration your resources and tread carefully down there. Draith-, over and out..." Now breaking out in a cold sweat, the lieutenant maneuvers down the pile of wrecked vehicles, rallying the nearby marines with a hand signal. "What are your orders lieutenant, we're sitting ducks out here..." A lance-corporal griped, as Gorman began to pace back and forth. Then, stopping to face his men, the lieutenant replies, "Gear-up marines, we're moving on the Ragna Rock now, radio dropship 3 and 4 and tell them they are a 'go' for insertion." With that said, the men disperse and prepare for the raid, packing computers and additional sentry guns into creates to be transported to the new F.O.B.

Further north, well within the metropolitan area beyond the Merkava quarantine zone, dropship 3 comes to a gentle hover over the roof of the local hospital. The bassy rumbling of its engines nearly drowned-out by the urban noise below, as the cargo-ramp lowers. Inside, the Nemesis straps a brown chello-case to his back, wrapping his head in tan-colored bandages as he steps towards the edge of the platform. Demetri leaps from the cargo hold, his immense weight causing the ship to sway about like a disturbed chandelier, kicking up a light cloud of dust as he impacts on the hospital's helicopter pad. As the dropship fades into the night sky, a broken layer of clouds giving way to the moonlight, the green giant makes his way to a maintenance door which to his surprise, remained unlocked. Stepping softly, the Nemesis proceeds down the dimly lit stairwell and onto the hospital's lower levels.

As he made his way past a series of operating rooms, his steps reverberating in the corridor, he took note of some of the patients. Most were pretty average-looking as far as cosmetic features, while others were covered in boils, spores and severe burns. The surgeons and nurses present in most of the wore full hazmat suits and worked alongside automated robots to treat the victims. _"It's been two years since the Merkava touchdown and people are still coming in daily with radiation-burns and viral infections... I just don't understand it..."_A nurse said as she started up the hall with her colleague. The two stop to gawk at the giant, one of them nearly dropping her clipboard as she asked, "Sir, are you from one of the recovery wards...? You really shouldn't be out of bed with those injuries..."

-"I'm sorry ladies, I was looking for the pediatrics wing, I'm visiting a friend who works there as a nurse, Maggie O' Connor-, you've heard of her...?" The Nemesis replied with a deep Russian accent. The young nurses look at each other in silence, then back at Demetri. "Oh... You'll want to take this hall until you see a sign that says 'Emergency Room,' then take the elevator down to the ground-floor and Peds is straight ahead." One of them said, breaking the awkward silence. "Thank you ladies, best of the evening to you..." The Nemesis replied with a polite nod as he made his way to the elevator down the hall. When the elevator stops on the ground level and the doors slide open, Demetri is a bit taken aback by the huge contrast in civilian occupancy. Hospital interns, doctors and small children moved about peacefully, glancing at the giant in awe as he started forward towards the pediatrics wing. About half way there, he caught a glimpse of Maggie through one of the windows to a treatment room. Stopping just short of the door, Demetri casually leaned against the wall, listening attentively as Maggie spoke with a sickly-looking young girl.

"So... Cheri Post." The nurse said as she peered down at a clipboard, "Wanna tell me how you ended up with such a lethal dose of Opium in your system...?" She asked as Cheri looked down at the floor and then back at the nurse. "You can trust me, let me help you..." Maggie said as she took the girl's blood-pressure. After another moment of silence, Cheri began. "About three days ago, I went to this abandoned nightclub up the street from Pikey's scrap yard, you know, just to get a roof over my head until the storm let up. There were people there, runaways, foster kids, a few potheads. They seemed nice at first, welcoming. They were a part of this-, club, The New Dawn, it wasn't like a gang or anything. -They said they could help me get back on my feet, get me a job in the city, so I joined. But then as I got deeper, I didn't like it so much because of what they were doing-, things I'm obligated to keep from you for your own safety... So, I tried to quit the club, told them I would keep their secret as long as I could go in peace."

Cheri said breaking into tears and quivering with sorrow as she hugged her knees to her chest. "Oh my God..." Maggie said, her face softening with sympathy as she passed the young girl a box of tissue. "They shot me up with drugs, and threw me in this dark hole under the main chamber. I don't know how long I was out before I came around. Even after I woke up, things were really fuzzy..." Cheri said in a low, shaky voice as she laid back on the hospital bed with a mournful sigh. Scooting closer and setting down her clipboard, Maggie asks, "How did you escape...? You're barely strong enough to stand." The young girl laughs empty-heartedly, wiping her tears and sitting up again.

"You're gonna think I'm ape-shit crazy... While I was locked in the hold, I overheard a couple of the guards talking about a pair of military aircraft that landed in Pikey's scrap yard. They seemed pretty spooked about the whole thing. Said one of the younger members saw an unmarked armored car leaving the yard accompanied by a set of guys in orange jumpsuits packin some pretty wicked hardware. After that I think I heard pounding-, everybody got really quiet and I heard the guards moving away from my cell. After that I think I might of passed out-, it was so cold down there, I hadn't eaten in two days and the others wouldn't let me drink anything, said it would flush the drugs out of my system and that they wanted me broken... Controllable..." Cheri said, fighting back her tears as she stared straight forward, seeming to look through Maggie as she replayed the nightmarish night in her head.

"I remember waking up covered in this syrupy shit, smelled like blood but I couldn't tell for sure, the lights were all off and all I could hear was gunfire. The sound was overwhelming, like being next to a thundercloud or something. I was bound so I couldn't cover my ears... -I remember the hatch on the ceiling bursting like a piñata and falling free of my chains. After that I climbed out of the hatch, I started to feel dizzy and rolled over on my back. Then, before I could figure out what to do next, some-, 'circle-jerk' took a boot to the side of my jaw, that's where I got _'this'_" Cheri said in a frustrated tone, pointing to a dark bruise on the right side of her lower jaw and tracing it to the nape of her neck. Maggie lightly applied pressure to the bruise, gently rotating the girl's head left and right. "He could've broken your neck with a blow like that, you were lucky..." The nurse said running a finger through Cheri's dark brown hair.

"Anyways... I remember being scarred awake by these horrible, agonizing screams. The dance-floor was covered in bodies, I hated those bastards with a white-hot passion-, they tortured me with tasers, starved me, drugged me, touched me in ways no woman deserves... -But the way they were scattered... Their bowels draped all over the chairs and tables-, the floor slippery with blood no matter where I stepped... -Nobody deserves to die the way those boys did..." Cheri said beginning to rock back n' forth as she continued. "I followed the screaming to the bar, finding what looked like Toby huddled against what was left of the bar-counter-, he was terrified of this hulking gunman dressed like a biker. His back was turned to me so I couldn't see his face. The back of his leather jacket was covered in bullet-holes..." Cheri paused making eye contact with Maggie. "Was he military...? Sounds like some kind of body-armor." The nurse commented, as she probed at the cuts around the patient's knuckles with a damp q-tip. -"That's what I thought... At first... Um, he grabbed Toby by the head like he was nothing and threw him against a pillar, after that he took this huge gun and mowed through the pillar like it was made of cardboard. Then he walks around the pillar, literally pushes on the crack with four fingers and the whole thing came crashing down on Toby...!" The young girl cried as Maggie reached under the bed, handing Cheri a bottle of water.

"Try and drink something honey, your lymphatic nodes are swollen from dehydration..." The nurse said as the girl continued. "I remember hearing people on the balconies, the smoke made it hard to make out what the biker looked like. When the dust settled, I could only see their guns poking over the ledges, aiming at the biker. It didn't make any sense-, he just stood there reloading that gun of his, didn't even bother to look up at them. I pulled a dead body over me... Figured if I looked dead maybe they'd throw me out back when it was all over ya know...? -I was so scared for that biker, his face was covered in cuts, blood-, who wears sunglasses in the dark...? Anyways, after he reloads I guess he notices the army of Eric-Stark's Finest looking down at him. At that point they open fire, but get this-, he stumbles a little, but doesn't go down and they 'hit' him, hit him all over... I guess a bullet eventually hit his weapon because it caught fire and started crackling like a box of fire-crackers. One of his bullets cooked off and hit the body I was hiding under, it instantly caught on fire and I was forced out of hiding..." Cheri said uncapping the bottle of water and sipping it slowly.

-"I'm dating a man that fought in the Gulf-War, the bullets you're talking about sound allot like um... Incendiary ammunition...? Only the military has access to that kind of stuff..." Maggie said urging the girl to continue.

"He turns his back to the kids on the balcony as they continue pouring led into this guy. The back of his head was shredded, so was his back, I could see a glint, like a metal plate under the chewed-up tissue. When a bullet hits a person, it makes a unique, muffled, crunch, this guy sounded like a metal post...! All this time he's just calmly fiddling with his weapon, not a care in the world. After a few more seconds the people on the balconies ran out of ammo, abandoning their posts and leaving two girls to fend-off the biker with a pair of machineguns. I knew them, Jaden and Anna-, they were runaways like me-, way in over their heads... When the biker turned to fire-, his weapon was absolutely, the most devastating and destructive thing I've ever seen in my life... Jaden and Anna were torn apart like livestock-, their weapons exploded, killing what I assumed to be 'everyone' on the balcony. -But it didn't matter, this guy kept firing... Before I knew it, blood and pieces of charred flesh rained down, I couldn't take it-, I blacked out..." The traumatized girl murmured, letting the half-consumed bottle of water roll off the bed, tears dampening the collar of her black tank-top as she quivered with sorrow.

"When I wake up again the biker is on the far side of the room near the kitchen door, surrounded by Eric's death-squad, unarmed and helpless. I thought for sure he was screwed... And just like that, they executed him... While they were busy with his corpse, I tried to sneak for the exit. But then the drugs-, made me dizzy... I fell on a table, made a shitload of noise. I could hear them behind me, heard the gunshots, didn't fuckin care-, I wanted out of that hellhole... So I kept running, or staggering, my feet felt like they weighed a ton. Then, I guess someone hits the floorboards in front of me, I was too dazed to shield my face in time and down I went... By the time my face stopped stinging, I was staring up at them, surrounded by guns-, and shark-grins. By then the power had come back on, I looked across the room to find the biker gone. After they bound my wrists, they noticed too and panicked, leaving me alone with a single guard. I spotted a .38 sitting in his 'unbuttoned' holster, waited for him to turn around and shot him with his own gun. I was gone before his body hit the floor-, that room... I thought it was bad before, but seeing it with the lights on-, the ground was a swamp of flesh, I couldn't even see the floor. I wanted to puke. The smell was horrible, gunpowder, sulfur and a hint of copper, the air was thick with the stuff... If there is a Hell, that had to be it..." Cheri said, staring at a vial of methadone on the far counter.

Maggie sat silently, taken aback by the fidgeting girl as she continued with the compelling recollection of the Ragna Rock massacre. "I made a dead sprint for the exit, about halfway there the floor explodes in front of me, throwing me on my ass yet again... I freaked out, saw a pair of glowing red eyes floating in the smoke-, thought I was hallucinating but the guys behind me saw it too... I could hear them reloading in the background, hell they were across the room and I could damn-near hear their heavy breathing. Then, guess who steps out of the smoke...? Fucking ghost-rider-, it was the same biker from earlier, had a shotgun in one hand and an AR in the other. I thought for sure I was screwed, I thought this guy was here to kill 'everybody...' But then he opens up with both guns, I turn to find Eric's protégés scattering for cover like roaches, absolutely terrified. He didn't even notice me. So I grabbed my .38 and crawled under his line of fire, sprinting for the exit. And of course, because my luck is so awe-inspiring and wonderful, some asshole gets me in a headlock and uses me as a body shield. I was a piece of meat to these people..!"

Cheri said, her expression wilting with sorrow as she clenched the bottom of her black skirt. "Ya know... come to think of it, that _thing_... That _monster_... Probably did more for me than any man has ever done in my entire life..." She mumbled, beginning to tear up again as she continued. "-When that heartless bastard held me out in front of him like a piece of equipment, I got a good look at the biker's face once he'd stepped into the light. My captor was even more freaked out than I was, he could barely keep from shaking. The right half of the biker's face was relatively unscarred all considered-, but his eye-sockets were gutted, his eyes weren't eyes at all, they were these swiveling metal lenses being held in place by what looked like two jumbo sets of skateboard bearings. The shredded flesh hung off what looked to me like a metal skull, his chest was nearly stripped clean as well. There was this gash in his left side near the hip-, I could see what looked like a strut or something, moving around inside..."

The young girl said, reaching for the fallen bottle of water as she concluded. -"At that point, I just wanted it to be over-, I prayed to God that it would kill us both... So he points his AR at us and it jams when he pulls the trigger. The dickhead behind me get's a hardon and starts talking shit-, empties his nine-mil into the biker's face. To my surprise the biker throws the rifle like something off of a Bruce Lee movie, bursting the face of my captor like a party-popper, we both go down, the weapon goes off -'while still stuck in this fucker's head' -fire breaks out and seals-off the main chamber when a gas-leak causes an explosion. I cut my binds with the bayonet lug at the end of the rifle and escape to freedom." Cheri finished smiling inwardly as Maggie chuckles under her breath. "So where's the gun...?" She asked with a sense of doubt in her tone. "I dropped it in a trashcan before reaching the security checkpoint on the south side of this district." Cheri replied as Maggie stood up to stretch.

"You think I'm crazy don't you..?" The young girl adds as Maggie sighs in reply, "Cheri, you had a near-lethal amount of opium in your system... Between the flesh-lined dance floor, the death-squads and the bionic man, I just can't believe that something that big could happen under the noses of the authorities. The possibility that someone with no military training, and who is barely strong enough to stand could survive such a disaster, seems a bit far-fetched too. I believe that you got high, that someone took advantage of you and obviously hurt you, but I can't find any supporting evidence of what you're claiming." She finished, starting at her clipboard as Cheri adjusted her sitting position and threw her feet over the edge of the bed. "Well if you can't believe my story, then believe this-, they have your sister... Jenna-, and your niece is next on their to-do list..." The young girl said staring at the nurse's nametag.

"Wait, what do you know about Jenna..? I haven't heard from her in 6 years..." Maggie asked now taken aback by Cheri's strikingly accurate knowledge of her family. "Ms. O' Connor we need you in room 4 now...!" An intern called from up the corridor. -"Stay here I'll be right back..." Maggie says, pulling a breathing mask over her mouth as she starts after the intern. "Don't let them get the little girl or we're all screwed..!" Cheri called as the nurse disappeared around the bend, slamming into Demetri's husk. Unmindfully, Maggie caresses the leather of his trench coat, panning up to address the towering figure. "Um-, sorry..." Maggie says, blushing slightly as the Nemesis nods politely, "The fault was mine, you should catch up with that intern, she seemed urgent..." Demetri replied, his charming accent and deep voice leaving the woman flustered as she continued up the hall.

The giant is mildly startled as something brushes passed the waistline of his overcoat. He turns silently to find the young girl making for the exit, smugly brushing passed orderlies lingering in the corridor as he followed after. Despite the massacre of acolytes at the nightclub, Cheri knew that it was only a matter of time before word got back to Eric Stark. _"I have to get out of the city..."_ She thought to herself, as she passed through the automated glass doors. Demetri cuts her off at the exit, innocently brushing his gloved hand through her hair as he passed by. "What the hell dude..?" She sneered, taken aback as she turns to face the giant. Then, backing away with a puzzled expression, Cheri dashes across the busy street, -"Great, I just snapped at a cripple from the Merkava touchdown... He was probably blind too..." She said in a frustrated tone before disappearing into the darkness of an alley. Leaning against the brick wall right of the exit, Demetri fiddles with a mic concealed in the cuff of his sleeve.

"Denmother-, it's Demetri, I need you to scan for a tracker-frequency within a two-block radius of my drop coordinates." The giant said, taking left and right and then starting up the street. -"I'm picking up a tracker moving away from the hospital, is that Maggie...?" Linda asked over the frequency. -"No, I threw it on a young girl, her name is Cheri Post, she's a deserter from The New Dawn. By the way, tell that sprostak -(asshole)- Gorman he can stop wetting his bragas outside the Ragna rock. Cheri's story confirms the place is a graveyard... Dakujem! Demetri over and out..." The Nemesis replies, resuming his mission.

When Maggie's shift was over, she drove home in her maroon 95' Ford Taurus, her mind wracked with questions as she pondered about what Cheri had said. When she gets home, she finds her niece peacefully playing with her toys on the living-room floor as her nanny cleaned up in the kitchen. Maggie stoops down, wrapping Cody in her arms and kissing her freckled nose asking, "how was your day sweetie...? Did you have fun with your nana..?" Looking up at her aunt, the little girl replies with a smile, "Cody wants to spend time with ma'am all day tomorrow..!" -"Okay, tomorrow will be all about Cody!" The woman laughed, the child playing with Maggie's blond, wavy, hair as she carried her niece off to bed. After reading the child a bedtime story and tucking her in, Maggie went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of Santa Rosa red wine. Sitting at her computer-desk and picking up the corded phone, the restless nurse dials the hospital.

-"Hey Chad it's Maggie, I was wondering if you ever found out what became of that runaway I treated earlier, Cheri Post...?" The woman said into the receiver, tiredly pinching the ridge of her nose. -"Sorry Mag, no leads, funny thing though, her paperwork disappeared..." The man replied over the phone. "Well can I at least get a last known address..?" she asked, leaning back in her swiveling chair. "Uh-Yeah, but it'll take a while, you might want to call back tomorrow..." Chad replies with a low chuckle, -"Ok" she sighed, hanging up in frustration. After taking a sip of wine, the nurse nods-off. Only seconds go by before Maggie is scared awake by her niece's blood-curdling screams. Maggie, scrambles out of the chair, shouldering the door to Cody's room several times as a monotonous seething noise escalated from inside. The wooden frame finally gives way, Maggie staggering backwards at the sight of black rats swarming about the white carpet like locusts. When she looked up at her niece, the little girl flailed about violently as the rodents tore into her flesh like razors.

Absent mindedly, Maggie darts for the flailing victim, being thrown through a wooden dresser and impaled at the neck when Cody's torso explodes into a shrapnel cloud of vaporous blood and bone. An instant later, as the image of her niece's strewn entrails faded into blackness, Maggie wakes up at her computer in a cold sweat. Chugging her glass of wine to numb the throbbing in her head. _"God... What the hell was that...?" _The woman murmured, patting her face with a piece tissue as her heart-rate normalized. -"Ma'am..!" Cody calls in a raspy voice. Shooting up from her desk and grabbing a crowbar from under her couch, Maggie shoves open her niece's bedroom door, falling against the oak dresser in relief when she finds only a shivering little girl. _"I was about to say..."_ She said under her breath, tossing the crowbar to the side and embracing the trembling child. -"I had a bad dream..." Cody said in a soft, shaky voice, defensively taking in several directions, still weary of the phantom blanket of teeth.

Maggie chuckles under her breath, wiping the sweat from the child's forehead as she replies, "If you were a little older I'd split a bottle Jack with you right about now..." Cody looks up at the woman puzzled as she asks, "you mean that apple-juice that makes grandpa's breath smell like pee and rubbing alcohol...?" The woman couldn't help but smile at her niece's comment, replying, "Try and get some sleep, we've got a big day tomorrow." -"Okay..." Cody smiled, hollowed-out and absent of any happiness what so ever. Suddenly as Maggie was about to get up and exit the room, a deep-pitched clatter of gunfire erupts from outside the window by Cody's bed. The woman tackled her niece off the twin-bed, falling to a prone position as a hailstorm of drywall and shards of glass are thrust towards the front of the room. The gunfire subsides, a resounding echo sending tremors into Cody's body as her aunt lay on top of her in tears. _"I think it's over-, let's get to the livingroom and call for help okay...?" _Maggie says under her breath, keeping low as she inches towards the exit, clenching her niece to her chest in fear. Suddenly, the sporadic automatic cannon-fire resumes, Maggie diving to her face just as the bedroom door is sent twisting off its hinges and tumbling into the living room in pieces.

Seconds later, an explosion rocked the house, a flaming three-axle vehicle could be seen spiraling passed the decimated window-frame, its ammunition discharging as it neared the asphalt below. The burning chassis came down with a metallic crash, Maggie flinching as munitions cook-off at random, some of which still hitting the house. When the bassy crackling subsides, the nurse takes notice of a rhythmic low-pitch grinding noise and the monotonous buzzing of electricity coming from outside. Still shaking with adrenaline, and disbelief, Maggie jumped up just fast enough to catch a glimpse of a large, dark object sliding around the corner, crumpling a light-post at an intersection. _"This cannot be happening..."_ She said in a low voice, stepping off the fragmented windowsill and checking her niece for injuries. -"Is it over...? What was that, noise...? What happened to my room...?" Cody asked as sirens echoed in the distance like a manic depressive choir.

The crackling of the burning vehicle defiled the once quiet residential street, it's flames shrouding the surrounding houses in an ambient, hue of yellow and orange. -"I don't know honey, I just don't know-, it probably wasn't meant for 'us' we were just caught in the crossfire... It was just an accident..." Maggie replied, maneuvering over the broken remains of her computer desk, as several police cruisers pulled up on the front lawn, shinning a pair of fog-lights in the window. Maggie steps out onto her front lawn with Cody bobbing on her hip. "Ma'am is this your house...?" An officer called, the nurse despondent as she gawks at the wide tread-marks imbedded in the now cracked sidewalk just passed her parked car.

Charred, moist, cadavers lay scattered about the asphalt, a trail of large caliber shell-casings lead to the twisted remains of a flatbed truck which lay on its side writhed in flames. The cab was torn open, revealing two twisted flesh-lined skeletons, what was left of the drivers... Cody stared at them with pity and remorse, becoming teary and anxious as Maggie covered her eyes. About 25ft from the twisted chassis lay a crumpled, oxidized 40mm four-barreled anti-aircraft gun, the pavement template next to that was a splotchy, hue of red and black; the peculiar quite grotesque color-pattern had wide tread-marks engraved in it.

Leaving Cody with a police officer, Maggie and a man with C.S.I stooped down and picked at the treadmark with pieces of scrap-metal found nearby. The analyst digs into a peculiar groove in the treadmark, recoiling in surprise when a human femur-bone separates its dormant texture from the rest of the grotesque pattern. "Whatever the fleeing vehicle was, it completely flattened this man's body; it was rather powerful as far as its engine output, due to the splash-radius of the flesh-stain and disturbed sediments of asphalt. Also, it had to be extremely heavy-, like thirty tons, a bulldozer maybe..." The crimescene investigator said, looking around and tracing over the tread-marks with his fingers. "Now that I think of it, these kinda look 'exactly' like bulldozer tracks. There's a construction site further up the street off of Cedar avenue." The man said as Maggie shook her head in frustration, "no, no, I see those all the time, this had to be much heavier than thirty-tons, the house shook when it passed by. Bulldozers are yellow, this vehicle had to be a dark blue or black, it was nearly invisible under that lamp-post over there." She said as the CSI and two policemen started at the oddly crumpled light-post in the distance. The investigator jogged over and began probing at the site with a pair of tongs.

By the time the cops and Maggie caught up, the young analyst held up a crooked sliver of rusted-brown and chromed metal. "Damn right I am! This shard of metal came from some type of track-mounted vehicle, identical to the platting used on the Caterpillar-series or typical bulldozers, cranes, ya-know? Heavy-based, slow-moving construction vehicles...?" He stated, putting the evidence in a zip-lock bag and giving it to one of the policemen. "Send it back to the lab for analyzing," he added as Maggie thought for a second, and then peered down the road, zeroing in on a high-pitched whistle. She read the nametag on the CSI's shirt and then asked, "Hey Redmond? I may not know allot about bulldozers or vehicles in general but isn't a tracked vehicle stranded if it loses a link in one of its track-groupings?" Redmond's eyes widened at the woman's comment, -"you're right! He can't be too far off from here..!" He said as the two policemen pulled out flashlights and followed the treadmarks up the street.

After a half-block they spotted a figure dressed in possibly white or gray, working on a large tracked vehicle with a magnesium torch. "Freeze..!" "NYPD..!" the officers called as the figure takes in their direction, then dropping the torch and disappearing inside the vehicle. At that point a pair of police cruisers rush past the group to intercept, Maggie being pulled aside by an officer as the tracked vehicle starts in their direction. Suddenly, as the pair of Ford P71s near their target, they are thrust aside as a twinning net of florescent-blue energy engulfs the tracked vehicle, the air seeming to shimmer where the vehicle once was. Maggie watched, jaw agape as the grotesque sound of its tracks continued in their direction; the analyst and two officers drawing back in fear and confusion as something swiftly passed in front of them dragging a gust of wind. The four froze in place, waiting for the tremors in the ground and the buzzing of electricity to subside.

The pair of Crown Victorias back up slowly, stopping on either side of the two stunned officers. "Pardon my French, but what the fuck, was that!?" One of the policemen said as his partner smacked him with his hat. -"Anderson, not around the kid, save it for poker night!" He said pointing at Cody as she peered out the back window of a police cruiser. By the time they get back to the crimescene, a cleanup crew is found loading the wreckage onto a flatbed 18wheeler. "Hey miss..?" Another C.S.I called as Maggie threw the child over her shoulder, cupping Cody's head in the palm of her hand. "This your house..?" He asked as the woman nodded "yes... What's left of it..." -"Are you or a close relative involved with any of the local militias in the area..?" The man asked, glancing at the decimated bedroom as firemen picked through the rubble with shovels and fire-skewers.

"No, why..?" Maggie asked now puzzled, adjusting Cody's position in her arms. "These bullet holes are perfectly aligned with that pile of shell-casings behind you. There aren't any holes in any other part of the house, and no tire tracks indicating that something else was obstructing a clean shot at your house. This attack was intended for 'you...'" He said grimly as Maggie nearly dropped Cody in shock, "-Who would try to kill us!?" She snapped, thinking of Cheri as Redmond strolled over holding a platinum 40mm shell casing. As he held it up to her face, Maggie read the words engraved on the base of the spent shell, 'Property of Umbrella Corp.' "You must've really pissed someone off for them to send Umbrellian mercenaries after you. I'd watch my back and my phone-line if I were you, since we rank below even an Umbrellian janitor, we cannot help you… Find an underground anti-Umbrella agency and cling to them for support. Stay off the phones, internet, and from under surveillance cameras... This was only a taste of what's to come." The man finished as he started off. "Wait! What good will 'that' do..?"

The woman asked, stepping in his path. Redmond turns in reply, "common-sense. If the corporation knew where you lived, they would have sent reinforcements by now, killing all of us, your neighbors, the works. These men obviously went out on reconnaissance, saw you entering your home and then later performed a sloppy, unsanctioned, drive-by. Though they may only have an outdated picture or simply your first name, it is wise for one like yourself to keep a low profile in order to avoid being followed back to a place of such vulnerability..." He finished with a polite nod, heading across the street to an unmarked cruiser. Too tired to question the authorities any further, Maggie re-entered her house with Cody and locked the door. The two then fell asleep on the livingroom couch watching cartoons, unbothered by the cleanup crews of fireman and crimescene investigators as they sifted through child's room.

On the other side of town, just a couple miles from the O' Connor residence, the charcoal-gray Tiger tank comes to an abrupt halt as a track-link in one of its trolleys comes undone. "Fuck son of a bitch...!" The T-830 moans, throwing his seatbelts aside in frustration. "Shoulda turned into one of those alleys when I had the chance, I knew that shoty tack-weld wasn't gonna hold..." Thomson mumbles as he rummaged through a nearby toolbox for his blow-torch. "Oh yeah, I ditched it at the construction yard..." The endoskeleton said with an inward hiccup of laughter. "Denmother this is Psyko do you read...!?" The T-830 barks over the channel as he plopped down in the driver's seat. "I read you Psyko, what's your status? Over..." Linda said back. "Well... I'm stranded up the street from the O' Connors with a broken track-link and no plasma-cutter..." The Terminator mumbled, undoing the bracketry around the vehicle's hull-mounted machinegun.

"Wait what are you doing all the way over-there...?" Linda's voice came over the static. "While I was patrolling the red-light district for enemy positions I spotted the muzzle glare from an autocannon and couldn't raise Poe on coms. So, assuming the little shit needed backup, I deferred from my route and followed. When I got there, I found a squad of Umbrellian mercenaries in front the O'Connor residence and took em out with the maingun before they could level the house. While I was tryin ta escape attention, I damaged a track-spoke on a protrusion left over from a light-post I crushed. The cops jumped me while I was welding in a new spoke and I had to ditch the torch and hightail it!" Thomson replied slowly sliding the light-machinegun out of its mounting journals. "So anyways, I'm gonna go radio-silent for about an hour while I search some of the auto shops in the sector for an arc-welder..." The endoskeleton added, shutting off the display monitor and starting out one of the forward hatches with his MG-3 in hand. "Copy that Psyko, Denmother over and out..." Linda replied just as the T-830 slams the hatch shut.

At the Ragna Rock nightclub, Gorman and his platoon of marines step tediously about the corpse-strewn main chamber with jaws agape. -"Well Bud, you really outdid yourself this time... Hell there's _nothin_ like a haphazard clusterfuck of strewn-corpses and broken furniture in the morning...!" Gorman barks in a sarcastic tone, as the T-800 emerges from the kitchen-wing at the far end of the chamber. "Judging by your posture, rise in skin-temperature and the dilation of your pupils, you are not pleased with my work..." The battered cyborg drones as Gorman scoops a broken AR-15 out of a moist hunk of flesh. _"No really, I'm fuckin thrilled...! In fact-, I really think you could have gotten a little more of this flesh-creep shit on the fuckin ceiling...! I mean common, you can't just fuse molten-flesh to the tables and chairs and leave the ceiling blank-, fucks up the fungtuay...!"_

The lieutenant scolds as Bud cants his head somewhat puzzled. -"Take all these broken rifles we keep finding for example, every one of em-, snapped in two...!" Gorman adds holding the burst-end of the receiver to the Terminator's face. "Your orders were to terminate all enemy insurgents within the compound... Your anger is illogical..." The T-800 droned, still baffled as the lieutenant continued to rant. _-"I'm not angry, I'm just broken fuckin hearted that you didn't snap em all in 'four' pieces instead...!_ -Of course I'm angry _handsome,_ our F.O.B is a circle-jerk of broken guns and egg-scented crimson toothpaste..!" The lieutenant yells, chucking the broken rifle across the room, and hitting a marine in the back of the head.

"Lieutenant...! You hit Mike what the fuck man!?" A corpsman called from the decimated bar-counter as he ran to the aid of the fallen soldier. -"Tell that pussy ta suck-it- up!" Gorman calls back, turning to face the Terminator and adding, "I fuckin hate you..!" After a brief silence, the T-800 replies, "I know you are but what am I...?" Leaving the lieutenant speechless as he storms off into the kitchen wing of the facility. By morning the fire-department, CSI and NYPD had all vacated the premises, a plastic tarp remained draped over the blown-out section of Cody's room by the cleanup crew prior to their disbanding. Poe sat cloaked on the front porch, waiting to tail Cody along with Demetri who was apparently a block away in an alley. When the housekeeper pulled up in her '92 Toyota Camry, she was shocked to find the terrible state the house was in. Poe leaping onto the edge of the roof as she anxiously approached the front door.

Maggie greets the woman with a long hug, inviting her inside as Cody hopped about with excitement. "Hi nana..!" the child called hugging the waist of the of the middle aged woman. "Hello Cody, are you ready to go shopping with your Ma'am?" The maid asked, setting her purse down on the chipped up coffee table. "Yeah..!" Cody giggled running to get her jacket. "Don't worry about a thing Ms. O'Conner, go spend the day with your niece, I'll call the insurance company and deal with all the paperwork." Olga said cupping Maggie's chin in the palm of her hands. "Oh thank you sooo much, you're such a blessing Olga, the last 12 hours have been hectic to say the least." The nurse replies as Cody emerges from her bedroom dressed and ready to go. Maggie and the child enter the maroon Ford Taurus and head off for a day of fun.

Poe followed stealthily-, seamlessly traversing from rooftop to rooftop as the vehicle moved relatively slowly. As they passed by a local Perish, Cody looked up at the church from the back seat, feeling drawn to the luminous structure as she gazed upon it. "Can we go..?" she asked her aunt, in a pleasant tone of voice. "Yeah... We could sure use allot of prayer right now..." She replied with a low chuckle, taking a left and parking on the curve. Poe followed them inside, sitting in the middle row and admiring the wonderfully articulated windows and statues. They sat one row up in silence. "I'm just going to say a prayer like Sister Rosa does okay..?" Maggie said, heading to the alter at the front of the sanctuary. -"Okay" Cody replied with a warm smile.

Sister Rosa was Cody's preschool or kindergarten teacher, the school was catholic-orientated, Cody's home away from home. While her aunt bowed her head to pray, Cody got up and waved at Poe, heading into the back room, and seemingly looming over a candle-lined altar beneath an opaque stain-glass window and the statue of St. Marry. After finishing her prayer, Maggie looks up to find the child had walked off. "Cody...?" She called under her breath, running off in search of the child. Poe sat in shock, deactivating his cloaking-field to briefly look over his equipment for defects. "I don't get it... My hardware seems fine, how did she see me..? Special..? Or Alien..?" The Yautja asked himself, reactivating the device and continuing with his stakeout. Moments later the Predator is startled as the throbbing of a two-cycle engine reverberates from outside. Seconds after the roaring engine subsides, Demetri's towering figure comes into view as he enters the sanctuary wearing a black, leather cowboy-hat in addition to his bandaged face, leather trousers and leather overcoat.

"Hey Pica..? Thomson would like to know why you were unable to link up with the child last night..." The giant said, setting his chello case at the entrance as he started forward. "Wait-, you can see me too...?" Poe asks in a surprised tone. "Of course comrade, who wouldn't notice a child-sized water-droplet skulking around like an ape...?" The Nemesis replied with a deep, droning chuckle. -"Now answer my question you little zadubenec..."-(dickhead) -"Oh, well, remember when Jill's cooking made my stomach all gergully...? It kinda gave me the shits and-, I kinda spent the night in an outhouse..." The Yautja replied with a snicker. Demetri sighs, shaking his head as he adds, "hmm... fine... Fair enough my little kohút-blaster. You owe that Crippletron a drink, Umbrella's mercenaries attacked the O' Connor-residence last night. He had to differ from his reconnaissance- route to dispose of their A.A gun and broke a track-link on that hunk of pes-hovno -(dogshit)- he calls a tank." The green giant said, heading for the back room to pray in private.

To his surprise he finds Cody manically rocking back and forth as she gazed at the statue of Marry. Suddenly as Maggie enters the room, the candles ominously ignite, the statue beginning to cry. -"Co-to-kurva...?"-(what the fuck?)- The giant blurts out in slavok, jaw agape as Cody turned around in tears crying in unison with the work of art. "She's sad for us..." The child said as Maggie, comforted her niece with a gentle hug. "-God has blessed you with a very special gift little one, don't worry, your secret's safe with me," The giant said in a soft, burly, voice as he knelt down and felt Cody's face with his massive, gloved, hands. To Maggie's surprise Cody fearlessly reaches out and hugs Demetri, whispering in his ear, _"he made you special too..."_ And kissing his bandaged face. As she left the Perish with her aunt, Demetri sits for a moment, letting the child's words sink-in as he leaned against the doorframe. A tear dampens the cloth around his face, the giant mumbling, "D'akujem Bohu."-(thank you God)-

When he returns to the main sanctuary, Poe is gone. Tossing a bundle of 20s into the offering-box right of the altar, Demetri crosses himself, picking up his chello-case at the entrance. After strapping it to his back, the giant mounts his black and chrome custom-sized Harley Davidson, throwing the ignition and spinning the back tire as he sped off to link up with the Predator.


	3. Chapter 3 Dissention In The Ranks

**Chapter 3**

**"Dissention In The Ranks"**

At around noon, the APC and the Tiger tank pull into a pair of vehicle ports behind the nightclub. The marines are found passing black trash-bags with unknown contents to one another, tossing them into a pile beside the vehicle bays. A pair of automated sentry guns sat on either end of the wide alley. "What the hell is that smell...?" Linda chokes out as she emerged from the personnel carrier. Thomson climbs out of the forward hatch on the tank's driver's side, his LEDs contracting to the size of a pin as he notes the leaning pile of bulging trash-bags. Just then Gorman rounds the corner of the tank with a lit cigar in his mouth. "Need a big favor Tommy boy..." The lieutenant said, ashing his cigar over a tin garbage can. "You say it as if I have a choice..." The endoskeleton mumbles as Gorman begins. "Thanks to Bud's_ awe-inspiring_ reenactment of fuckin Hellraiser,the F.O.B is _ass-high_ in rotting cadavers. Now-, the boys did the hard part last night, scraping Eric Stark's teeny-bopper army off the walls... So all we need _'you'_ to do, is acquire 10,000 gallons of hydrochloric acid so we can dissolve the human mulch in all these trash-bags..."

The lieutenant finished as one of the cyborg's pin-sized LEDs dilate in annoyance. -"What!? Fraggo that shit, just burn the fuggin things...!" The T-830 retorts, crossing his arms. _"Oh yeah, great idea Crippletron. Screw covert-status, let's just make a big fuckin fire so Mr. Stark can send us a care-package of rabid, bomb-totting, teeny-boppers, for wiping out his main training facility..." _Gorman replied in a sarcastic tone. -"Well where the hell am I supposed to find ten-thousand gallons of acid!? Better yet, how the frak am I supposed ta transport it!? Fleet's in Colorado Springs by now...!" The endoskeleton snapped, struggling with his hinged elbow-joints and actuators-, again... Upon freeing his arms, the T-830 chucks his helmet over the top of the tank in frustration, grunting "fucking elbow-joint assemblies..!"

The lieutenant squares up on the Terminator, poking its chest-plate with his index finger as he mocked, _"Hey, I'm not worried, you're a T-830, that's plus-30 I.Q points over the T-800! I'm sure you'll figure 'something' out..."_ Snatching the cigar from the lieutenant's mouth, Thomson retorts, -"Oh die from cancer already you egghead, lama-tongue, pre-Madonna muthafucka...!" Gorman grabs the cyborg's rear clavicle-linkage as it starts for the tank. _"Pre-Madonna motherfucker what...?_" The lieutenant asks in an over-patronizing tone as Thomson looks over his shoulder in reply. "Sir..." -Shoving away from the soldier's grasp and climbing up the front of the tank's hull. _"That's my boy, go get-em tiger...! That was a Pun by the way..."_ The lieutenant mocks, tipping his patrol-cap to the cyborg before heading inside. "Whatever you say..! _Rosie-cheeked, goofy-footed, PMS 'n wanker-motherfucker..."_ The T-830 grumbled, climbing into the open hatch and slamming it shut.

After activating its cloaking-field generator, the tank starts for the end of the alley, it's twin electric-motors buzzing in unison as the vehicle rounds the corner, crumpling a parking meter as it sped off. With a smirk on her face, Linda silently grabs an M.R.E off the table in the vehicle bay, taking it back inside the APC for some privacy. As soon as she slides the hatch shut, the nubile woman bursts out in laughter to the point of tears. "I cannot believe 'that' just happened...! I love that kid!" She blurted out, quickly regaining her military composure as a marine briefly opens the hatch to toss Thomson's helmet inside. "Hey Anderson, what did Gorman mean when he said 'main training facility..?'" Linda asked as the marine replied, "the lieutenant found training manuals in the penthouse suite and a small shooting range in the basement. Stark doesn't know yet and we plan to keep it that way until we're ready to announce ourselves. Take care of yourself Denmother." The soldier finished, sliding the hatch shut and resuming his work.

In an industrial park just north of the suburbs, the charcoal-gray battle-tank comes to a halt in front of a small, vacant, office building. "Seems as good a place as any..." The terminator mumbles, driving up on the curb and pivoting the tank left and right until it was parallel with the building. Powering down the twin-electric motors behind him, the T-830 slouched in the driver's seat, still aggravated about the confrontation with his superior officer. _"Only ten-thousand gallons...? Well by-golly sir, why didn't-chya say so..! I'll just break into every collage campus in the state and steal their supply of hydrochloric acid... Oh wait, I can't-, because half of the city is a smoking crater as of 2 years ago, So no...! _Who's that jackass think he's kidding..? I can only collect enough to fill one of those 3ft deep little kiddy pools at best..." The T-830 muttered in a mocking tone as he talked to himself.

_"Well, guess I have no choice but to overnight a shipment off the 'inter-web' and charge it to your bank-account-, sir..."_ Thomson mocked in a southern accent as he logged onto the web. Suddenly, as he types his search into 'Google shopping' a metallic thud is heard from the engine bay behind him, then another from under the floor lining. Minimizing the internet window, the endoskeleton takes notice of the red, highlighted, area on the tank-icon at the bottom-center of the screen. "Rear-impact sensor triggered but no penetration... What-, somebody shot a potato-gun at the back a ma-tank...?" Thomson mumbled, jerking the half-installed MG-3 out of its journals and climbing out the forward hatch. With caution, yet seemingly unconcerned about public exposure, the T-830 quietly slides off the front of the hull, stepping lightly towards the back of the cloaked tank with his weapon shouldered.

The Terminator drops his aim as he rounds the corner, clenching his free hand in a fist as he stared down at an unconscious boy with bruised cheekbones and a broken nose. With a low sigh, the endoskeleton notes the shimmering image of a skateboard trapped under the vehicle's chassis. "Really... A fuckin skater-, get's close-lined by a cloaked Tiger tank? -Now there's an interesting headline... Ever heard of school you little webble-wobble-dipshit...!?" Thomson scolds, panning around for any witnesses before carelessly dragging the boy by his upper-jaw and roughly tossing him in a ditch across the street. Then, jogging back and scrambling under the tank, the T-830 frees the skateboard from between two torsion-bars.

Cursing under his breath as he emerges from under the chassis, the cyborg sets his MG-3 on the curve. Then, effortlessly, the T-830 snaps the board in two, chucking both halves down the alley and into a dumpster. "Cheeky little prick..." He grunts, snatching his weapon off the curve and climbing back into the cloaked tank with an inward sigh. Carelessly throwing his weapon to the back of the chamber, the Terminator plops down in front the display monitor, resuming his search on Google. After a few minutes, the internet window is minimized automatically as the impact sensor on the face of the turret is triggered. The endoskeleton cants his head in confusion as the bore-sites on the maingun go dark. "What the hell, a solar eclipse..?" The T-830 mutters in annoyance, twisting the axis on the adjacent joystick to no avail. Reaching under the navigation console, Thomson grabs a chromed .50cal Desert Eagle, slowly inching open the forward hatch and rotating his view until he notices a pigeon perched in the primary bore-sites.

"Alright, listen here you... I happen to like pigeons so I will let you off with a warning; I'm am ape-shit pissed-off and the next time you block my bore-sights, I'm gonna rock your world." The endoskeleton says, reaching up and fanning the animal away. Then, climbing back inside and shutting the hatch, Thomson leans over the navigation console, resuming his online purchase. After another minute or two, the cyborg completed the transaction, plopping down in the driver's seat with a sense of accomplishment. Upon minimizing the internet window, the T-830 is taken aback with aggravation as a giant, bobbing, pigeon head obstructs the screen. Grabbing the joystick again, the Terminator fires a short burst from the co-axial machinegun, snickering as the bird scrambles out of the bore-sights and flees from the vehicle.

_"Yeah, automatic weapons go off in New York all the time, I'm sure nobody's gonna notice that..."_ Thomson mutters sarcastically, panning the turret left and right for any civilians as he drew up a portable radio. "Denmother, this is your favorite tin-man in the whole wide world speaking... I am pleased to report that the ten-thousand gallons of hydrochloric acid will ship tonight, arriving as early as tomorrow morning. Courtesy of Gorman's bank-account... Psyko over and out..." The endoskeleton finished, breaking out in a loud, maniacal, cackle of laughter. His self-gratification is abruptly cut short as the cloaking field generator begins to howl, producing an error code onscreen. "Awe, don't tell me it's raining..." The Terminator sighs, inching open the forward hatch and immediately noting the seething sound of boiling liquid. Throwing the hatch open, he clenches his fists in frustration as iridescent-blue sparks arced off the hull on the passenger-side of the tank. Panning up, he notices a horde of pigeons perched on the roof of the small office building, their rear-ends aimed over the edge as they defiled the steel-beast with fecal matter.

"Really...? Seriously...? Do you furry fucks have any idea how rare it is to find an intact German Tiger I battle-tank...! This is blasphemy..!" The cyborg yelled as if the gang of birds could understand him anyway. In a fitting rage, the endoskeleton disappears into the hatch, bringing the tank's cloaking-field offline as he straps himself in. Then, rotating the turret to face the horde of pigeons, Thomson squeezes the trigger, recoiling in surprise as the maingun fires off a round, converting the birds into a pink, feather-strewn, vapor-cloud and blasting-out a section of the roof. _"Nooo... Dammit..!"_ He hissed with a sarcastic hiccup of laughter, "I did not just do that..." He added, panning right to look at his joystick. "I totally forgot I remapped these controls yesterday. Thumb-trigger is for the maingun, _primary trigger_ is for the co-axial machinegun..."

Before he could figure out what to do next, the battery of tiny microphones networked throughout the tank's hull, pick up the faint echo of sirens. Bringing the twin-motors back online, the endoskeleton presses down on both throttle pedals, moaning in regret as he neglects to re-center the position of the turret. The tank drags its jutting cannon through the face of the building, leaving a gaping chasm in the structure as the vehicle continued up the sidewalk. "Yeah, that's right Gorman-, fuck covert...!" The cyborg barked, veering off the sidewalk as he re-centered the turret and continued to flee the scene. 

When Cody and her aunt got home, Olga's car was gone, and a black limo remained parked in front the house. -"Hey Maggie you win Publisher's Clearing House or something...? Insurance company payin you back for the drive-by..?" A neighbor called as she stepped out of the car. A bit eerie of an intimidating man standing just right of her front door in a black tux, she ignores the bachelor's comment, though the phrase sounded just about right. Taking the child's hand, Maggie approached her residence, being surprised as the suit opens the door for the two like that of a butler. "Cody!" A blond, petite, woman calls, coming out of the kitchen with open arms.

"Do you have a kiss for mommy?" the woman asked as Cody backed away in shock, clinging to her aunt for security "Jenna...? Uh, hi, this is..." Maggie was at a loss of words as she gawked at her sister, who she hadn't seen or heard from in six years. Bud drove up and parked across the street in his stolen T-Rex Dodge Ram pickup, noting the unidentified limo and listening attentively through the planted bug as Maggie continued to converse with an unknown couple. Nearly an hour later, After Cody softened up a bit, the mother and father she hardly knew seemed to overwhelm the child with gifts until she'd had enough, -"no more gifts..." The child said, seeming entranced by the reflective wrapping paper scattered about the family room.

Jenna's loving gaze shriveled in a manic frustration and the woman snapped, "-there's still something wrong with her isn't there..?" Caressing the child's dirty-blond, shoulder-length hair, Maggie replied, "-no, she's fine-, just a little different, and she's definitely not deaf. Her condition is called Autism, she's considered high-functioning by medical standards." She finished, setting Cody on her lap as she continued. "Six years ago you dropped Cody on my doorstep and disappeared without so much as a phone call. You must realize how much of shock this is to me." "-well I'm here now and in good health thanks to Eric..." Jenna replied, seemingly oblivious to the point Maggie was trying to get across. "-It may take her a long time to get use to you..." Maggie said with a sigh, resting her eyes on Cody. "You mean like a day..? I don't see anything wrong with that, everything's gonna be fine, isn't it Cody..?" Jenna retorted as Maggie's expression seemed to harden with frustration.

-"Go watch cartoons in my room..." Maggie whispered, kissing the child on the cheek and letting her scamper off. Then, with an angry glare, the nurse begins, "You're not taking her from me, she isn't ready for such a huge change in her life like this. I've been here from the beginning, I'm all she knows, you can't just barge in here and blow up her world like it's a walk in the park." -"No it's not fair Cody's my little girl you can't keep her from me..!" Jenna snaps, breaking out into a manic episode of sobs and crumpling to the floor. At this point, Jenna's husband Eric, throws an arm over her shoulders calling, -"Dulia ..? Pack our bags were leaving..." And helping Jenna towards the exit. He then adds as he's starting out the front door,

-"leave this alone, for your sake and Cody's..." After shutting the door with a sigh of relief, Maggie went looking for Cody and found the TV in her bedroom running but no child. _"Cody?"_ She called softly, looking under the bed and finding nothing. She then looked up at the gargoyle sculpture mounted on the opposite building next door, pointed at the window. Something sat uneasy with her as the situation seemed to rectify itself. On pure instinct and adrenaline Maggie sprinted for the front door, ripping it open to find the limo driving off with Cody gagged in back window. Maggie ran after the limo screaming and cursing at the top of her lungs before stopping to pant in the middle of the street. Then, clenching her hair, she made for her Ford Taurus, lighting up the tires as she sped to the nearest police station.

After speaking with a marshal for nearly an hour, and turning up with no immediate solutions, the only option was to return home and let law-enforcement take its effect. When she came home she checked her answering machine in hope that the NYPD turned up any leads. There was one message; _-"Hi Maggie this is Cheri, I know where Cody is, meet me at the restaurant south of the subway station, and can you bring some cash?"_ Now throbbing with anticipation, Maggie immediately left for the restaurant, knocking over her mailbox as her Taurus fishtailed onto the uneven pavement and headed uptown. By the time Maggie got to the location, traffic had lightened and it began to rain. Thunder rattled the glass windows as she entered the restaurant, finding Cheri sitting at a table near the cash register, vigorously puffing on a cigarette and fidgeting. Maggie set a ten-dollar bill in front of Cheri and sat down.

"This is all you brought? I can't get out of the city with this..." Cheri said in disappointment as her expression sunk in worry. "Cheri please, tell me what you know about this 'Eric Stark'..." Maggie replied, leaning forward attentively. -"Well do you believe in the Devil..?" Cheri asked in a low voice. "Not literally..." the nurse replied, now a bit thrown by the comment. "Well 'he' does... It's kind of a religion but like none at all, they can predict the future and even make things happen to people. They started acting weird this year, killing kids born on this special date, boys, girls... 'The Slater of The Innocents' he calls it," Cheri finished, her eyes watering at the corners as she took a puff of her cigarette. "What do you mean..?" Maggie asked trying to grasp the situation.

"Cody is special, and he wants to turn her to his 'Lord' so he can use her power to overthrow the world. This would shift military and political support from all over the world to the Umbrellian Empire. Cody is meant to lead people to God, but if guided incorrectly, can cause an era of destruction beyond you can imagine..." Cheri concluded. "_Cheri_" Maggie said, in a low voice, noticing the surveillance camera over the bar as it rested on her position. "I haven't got much time, where is she..?" Cheri turned to the front windows, spotting a group of Eric's acolytes making for the entrance. "You promise to get her out of there..?" Cheri asked, reaching into her coat-pocket. "Yes..." Maggie retorts, feeling an onset of adrenaline. Then, dropping a .38caliber revolver on the table wrapped in an address, Cheri adds, "Then you're going to need this!" -darting out the back door as the acolytes chased after with hammers, knives and 2 by 4s. After Maggie was sure the raving horde hadn't seen her, she snuck out the back-door after them, terrified for Cheri's safety. The restaurant owner now spooked, closed early, knowing that the cultists would be back for his head soon.

Scared to death and now without a firearm, Cheri ran her ass off, thinking to herself over and over, _"get to the train-get to the train, you'll be safe there..."_ Cheri finally got to the subway station after several blocks of slipping and sliding in the rainy urban jungle but there was no train... She screamed as one of the guys dove for her, just missing her legs as they carried her to safety. Unfortunately she is cutoff as additional acolytes poured in from the stairwell on the far side of the platform. Tackling the young girl to the cold, hard, cement, the horde of acolytes begin to beat and flog her. Maggie had just entered the station from the other end, taking aim at the angry mob as they festered around Cheri, violently defiling her figure like hyenas upon a carcass. Feeling an onset of nausea, Maggie began to hallucinate, gawking at the dragon-like spirits clinging onto the backs of the mob like puppet masters, their jet-black metallic images smearing across the cityscape as she reached for her cell phone. As a result of calling instead of shooting, Maggie is knocked on her face, as an acolyte brings a steel-pipe across the back of her head. Rolling on her back, the nurse dizzily fires several shots at the looming figure, letting the gun fall from her limp hand, as the acolyte comes down on her chest with the blunt-end of the pipe. The blow was paralyzing, it rendered her useless, she could only watch Cheri fight to stay alive.

On the other side of the tile-lined station, Cheri tried to escape, staggering about in a drunken fashion as her body gave way, pulling her to the ground. She kicked and screamed as the cultists strung her up and struck her with 2 by 4s full of nails and glass, cutting little elaborate patterns in her thighs with hunting knives and murmuring in old Latin. In all the confusion, Cheri turns away from the nightmare below her, drawing back in fear as the wall next to her comes alive. A glossy, transparent, humanoid swiftly took up a position behind one of the acolytes, letting out what appeared to be a set of chromed talons from its wrist and taking aim. Right when they were going to behead the young girl, Poe de-cloaks, stabbing his wrist-blades into the executioner's lower back and letting out a victorious roar, ripping the spine out of the man's back with a sickening crunch. Before the others could react, the subway stairs are completely demolished as an APC careens through them, skidding to a stop just short of the edge of the platform.

As its pair of 20mm Vulcan cannons train on the group, Bud is seen rushing out of the subway-tunnel with a Benelli M4 auto-shotgun, his eyes giving off an iridescent glow as he took aim. Without warning, the Terminator fires a magazine's worth of 12gage buckshot, sending the acolytes scrambling for cover as the pellets sent shards of tile twisting in the air. Suddenly the APC opens fire, its Vulcan cannons deafening in the tile environment as several of the cultists are stripped of their flesh in a matter of seconds. After the guns spool to a halt, the APC's door slides open, Demetri sprinting out of the rig and snatching Cheri off the ropes. The Nemesis turned to find additional enemies staggering down the haphazard of subway stairs armed with 12gage shotguns, Desert Eagles, Berettas, and other stabbing weapons. While shielding Cheri from site, Demetri drew up his rusted, stainless-steel stinger launcher, pausing briefly as its internal dispenser cycled a missile. The acolytes open fire, keeping well out of the APC's field of view as they riddled the Nemesis full of tiny holes.

Without warning, Demetri fires a rocket into the foreground of the assailants. The blast is deafening, taking out a set of florescent light panels and kicking up a cloud of asbestos and viscous red paste. The APC fires another short burst, the muzzle glare illuminating a pair of acolytes low-crawling in the foreground under the smoke. The titan gawked at the dragon-like clouds of iridescent black smoke as they straddled the disembodied cadavers and pressed onward with the skirmish. At that point the Nemesis was in a panic and thought only of Cheri's safety. "Vamanos muchacos..!" Demetri yelled, handing Cheri over to Poe just as the asbestos settled and additional dark figures began creeping onto the platform from both the stairwell and the subway tunnel opposite the APC. Inside, Linda frantically loaded another pair of magazines into the Vulcan cannons, peering into the bore-sites and panning the turret around to find dozens of heavily-armed acolytes moving in from the blackness of the subway tunnel. The group of freedom fighters were completely outnumbered, outgunned and surrounded. Suddenly clatters of gunfire erupt from somewhere behind the enemy fire-line, disrupting the flow of troops.

The lights dim as a nearby explosion rocks the tunnel, the monotonous growling of a tracked vehicle reverberates from somewhere above the subway station. A pair of acolytes stagger around the corner of the stairwell on the far side, taking aim at something at the head of the stairs. The growling subsides into a bassy idle, a shadow slowly creeping over the pair of gothic troops as they aimed their AT-4s anxiously. Breaking the eerie silence, the two fire, the shadow quickly retracting as the pair of rockets scream up the stairwell. Suddenly the two teens are converted into a cloud of vaporous blood as a shaped-charge impacts between them.

As their charred cadavers slide about on the bloodstained cement, the Tiger tank slides down the subway stairs, kicking up tile and wire-frame as it continued through an empty, passing, train. The collision stops the glass and steel traincars on contact, the tank's trolleys arcing as the vehicle attempted to dislodge itself from the wreckage. At this point, a pair of acolytes take aim with their AT-4s. The two fire just as the tank lurches away from the mangled subway car, the inertia from the resulting blast swaying the chassis backwards and sending debris crashing down on the rest of the interlinked cars. Quickly throwing aside his restraints, the T-830 sets the tank's A.I to 'sentry mode,' ripping the hull-machinegun from its unlatched journals as the vehicle rotates to face the firefight outside.

The acolytes scatter off the platform and onto the electrified tracks, recklessly firing over the wall of cement with under-barrel grenade launchers. Slowly backing towards the stairwell, 40mm grenades bouncing off its forward-armor like steel tennis-balls, the tank trains its turret on the panicked teens, regardless of them being out of its field of view. The small clusters of explosions and machinegun-fire are drowned-out for a moment as the tank fires a deafening burst from its maingun. The air seems to bend for an instant as the shaped-charge impacts against the far-side of the tunnel, the kinetic energy from the blast crushing the grenadiers into crimson mulch. Taking advantage of the chaos, Thomson bursts from the forward-hatch with his weapon blaring, several acolytes twisting to the floor with neck-wounds as the endoskeleton sprinted for a nearby pillar. With his back to the pillar, the T-830 tracked a group of acolytes through a wall, as they rushed down the stairwell behind the tank.

When their squad leader rounds the corner, the Terminator fires a burst into the teen's neck, the skull bursting as the corpse twists into the far-wall. His squadmate leans around the corner with an AT-4, Thomson firing a burst into the weapon itself and turning away with a snicker, as the missile cooks-off and the teen is blasted in two; his lower body splattering against the back of the tank with a fleshly, metallic, crunch. The tank sounds its maingun again, a shrapnel-cloud of cinder-blocks and tempered, steel- wireframe erupting at the center of the firefight. As the reverberating echo from the cannon subsides, the platform now shrouded in a cloud of asbestos, the rest of Thomson's crew wasted little time, as even then, more acolytes could be heard skulking about in the tunnels. "Time to go..." Bud droned, hefting Maggie onto his shoulder and entering the APC. Demetri took extra care as he entered, setting Cheri on an empty troop bench adjacent to the Vulcan cannon controls. Sliding the door shut, the APC heads for the undamaged stairwell on the far side of the platform. It's engines leaving a resounding echo that made the empty chamber feel crowded.

Shaking off the mild disorientation, the T-830 carefully makes his way to the idling battle tank, scornfully stepping around several glistening hunks of colorless meat. Climbing up the front of the hull and entering through one of the forward hatches, Thomson disables the vehicle's A.I, pivoting the chassis to face the stairwell and speeding- off to catch the APC. After a few blocks, Linda was forced to pull into an alley to treat Cheri as she began to violently convulse. As Demetri held the girl down, Poe struggled out of his medical kit. _"Hey why'd you guys stop..? We still got a few on our tails."_ The radio barked as Linda drew up the receiver in reply. -"She won't stop kicking and screaming, she's delirious." Linda said as Cheri's screams turned into strangled whimpers and she began vomiting blood. "Shit, this looks like a punctured lung, I don't know how much of these injuries I can treat with only one med kit!" Poe called across the chamber, as the tank could be faintly heard pulling behind the group.

"Did you get that Thomson..?" Linda added, setting the receiver on the console and stooping down to assist the others. _"Awe damn, looks like we've got company, I'll try and keep them off your backs, just get the gal stable enough for us to start moving again."_ Thomson replied, as the tank's bassy idle escalated to a groan. Outside, Thomson brings the tank out of the alley and into a break in the traffic, panning the turret left and right to find hordes of acolytes pouring in from both sides of the main-street. Suddenly clatters of gunfire erupt on either side of the tank, several rockets ricocheting off the face of the turret as the vehicle slides about in zigzags with its hull and turret MG-3s blaring. Traffic was quite dense at that point, civilians could be seen scrambling out of their vehicles and into adjacent stores and restaurants as red and white tracers were exchanged between the two sides and the tank. Once civilian traffic is at its minimal, Thomson fires a burst from the maingun, sending a blue sedan cart-wheeling out of its parking-space and landing on a group of acolytes.

As the autoloader chambers another round, Thomson is taken aback as metallic objects are heard rolling around on the hull. "Really...? Grenades...?" He said to himself, putting the tank in a brief spin and snickering as the grenades rolled off the hull and into surrounding cars and acolytes. Suddenly a cluster of explosions rock the cityscape, clouds of cadavers and asphalt shrouding the scene in a deathly gloom. The endoskeleton pans the turret towards the alley, taking note as the APC backed out and started up the main street in a reckless fashion. By now, Cheri had passed out, mumbling a prayer in her sleep, as Poe applied anesthetics to her more critical wounds and Bud slowly siphoned the blood from her nearly collapsed lung, with a piece of copper tubing. Suddenly she is startled awake again, as an M54 Smartgun falls from one of the gun racks, landing on her torso. The APC jolts violently, Demetri trying his best to secure Cheri with his massive hands as Linda regains control of the troop carrier. "What the hell was that..." Bud calls nonchalantly, tossing the Smartgun to the front of the chamber. "I think they're firing on us with shoulder-launched missiles, I just flattened a few parked cars!" Linda called back with an arched brow.

"We have to lose them, this carrier can only deflect low-velocity missiles." Bud said making his way to the front of the chamber and sweeping Linda out of the driver's seat. "Hold on..." He droned, fishtailing into a sharp turn and taking the APC off an overpass. The crew brace themselves as the carrier lands on the roof of a warehouse complex, careening through several floors of steel and concrete before violently tail-sliding onto a nearby side-street. Bud jerks the steering wheel left and right, struggling to stabilize the vehicle on the slick road. Suddenly, as they near an intersection, a brick building collapses, shrouding the four way stop in white smoke as the Tiger tank comes into view.

"Damn that thing is fast..." Linda mumbled, peering at it through the crystal-quartz side window. The group is startled again as a grinding machine-noise erupts from under their feet. _"You guys are leaking some kind of yellow fluid, looks like that fall cracked the differential case..."_ Thomson said over the radio. The APC turned into an alley, scraping against the corner of the buildings as it forced its way into a courtyard. Its crew was taken by surprise when the Tiger tank collides with the rig, driving up the back of the APC, sliding down the front and halting several meters away. "Alas heathen! I have establishafied ma man-nuts-, butt-raped your APC…" Thomson barked over the radio. "That doesn't help at all jackass..." Linda sighs as she turns to face Cheri and the others. The young girl cried silently, tears of blood running down her temples to the nape of her neck as she started to convulse again. Thomson climbs out of the forward hatch on the tank, taking left and right before sprinting for the APC and entering through its side door.

"Okay guys, looks like we lost the bastards for now, but it won't be long before they trace that shit-storm we left downtown, to this alley." The T-830 said, taking a knee by the wounded girl and canting his head to look at Maggie. "She's still out...? Jese... Hell of a blow to the head." He added as Poe and Bud worked silently with the tools in the Yautja medkit. "We need you to scrub in, your endoskeleton is the only sterile pair of hands we can use." Bud droned, sliding a Bunsen burner at the T-830. Thomson holds his skeletal hands over the flame, waiting a moment for them to cool before starting at Cheri's wounds. Using a scalpel, Bud cuts open Cheri's side, allowing the endoskeleton to intricately stitch up the punctured kidney and stop the blood loss. Within 30minutes, the procedure was done and Cheri was fast asleep on the troop bench within the safety of the APC.

Sometime later, Cheri awoke to the smell of Hydraulic grease, it was sour and metallic like tar. The hissing of rain could be faintly heard beating against the outside of the hull. She turned to look at Thomson, who stood over her fiddling with a solenoid of sorts. The young girl looked him head to toe, seemingly unbothered at this point as she studied his articulated series of trailing-linkages, axial-motors and actuators, noting how each one of them allowed for humanlike movement. Setting the solenoid in a groove under his chest-plate, the endoskeleton knelt down to see if her pupils were dilating as she ran her fingers in and out of his eye-sockets and onto his cheeks and slightly yellow teeth. She gently probed at his jaw-pistons as they expanded and contracted, smiling as the cyborg continued to observe her. -"you're the man from the Ragna Rock... My avenging angel... I knew I wasn't seeing things..." She sighed, her eyes watering with tears as she thought back to that night.

"Ragna Rock...? I never got to set foot in the damn place, only saw the car ports. Gorman gave me a 'honey-do' list a fuckin mile long-, boy is he gonna get a surprise on his next bank statement... I wonder if it'll be tax deductable since it was work related…? Ya know I should fuck up his taxes too…" The T-830 trailed-off with a wheezy chuckle, slowly canting her head in several angles with his articulate hands. "Your voice is cute..." She whispered shakily, still fatigued from surgery. -"Bull-hovno..."-(bullshit)- Demetri snickered in the background, Thomson chucking a spent 20mm shell-casing at the giant's head. -"Silence monkey... I think the pubescent human may be onto a startling discovery..." -"what-, that your voice actually sounds like a dog, with its head stuck in a tire, getting fucked in the ass by a liska...?" The Nemesis mumbled tiredly as Linda chuckled under her breath.

-"A fox...? wow... You guys are bad..." She muttered, -rolling over in her sleeping-bag as she slumbered under the communications console. "Dude really...? You're fuckin Jay Leno after he got food poisoning, turned into a zombie and ate Shriek... Fuggin Buick on legs..." The endoskeleton mumbled as Demetri quivered with laughter, covering his face with his hat as he lay down the middle of the chamber. "I look nothing like Jay Leno." The giant said, his voice muffled under his hat. "That's because you ate fuckin Shriek... Now go-da sleep..." Thomson replied, fanning the giant down and resuming his attention on Cheri. "I'm not the same Terminator that took out the nightclub, that was Bud, I didn't even know what you looked like until the runnin at the subway station. Anyways, you really should rest, I have an inkling tomorrow's gonna suck."

The cyborg finished, pulling a thermal blanket over the young girl as she asked, "where is he, is he okay...?" Glancing over at Maggie, the T-830 took the woman's skin temperature, checking her bandages for additional bleeding around the head-wound. "Bud's fine, he's in one of the surrounding structures keeping watch with the Smartgun, I'll introduce you two tomorrow..." The endoskeleton replied, lying just forward of the Vulcan Cannon controls and going into a low-power state. Cheri felt a sense of safety in the company of her new friends. Carefully inching off the troop bench, the nubile brunet curled up next to the dormant endoskeleton. Festinated with the complexity of the machine, Cheri continued to study its construction. She noted the warm air bleeding from under its chestplate, and how its axial-drive motors were still warm to the touch. When the rain outside subsides, the girl finally falls asleep, comforted by the faint hum of electricity from the surrounding equipment.

Thomson woke up the next day to excessive vibrations that seemed to echo even in his powered-down state. He dilated his LED's and found Linda saying something that he couldn't make out because his sound driver hadn't fully loaded yet, resulting in temporary deafness. He panned around the chamber, finding Cheri gone and Demetri crouched just outside the carrier's doorframe with his stinger launcher. The T-830 assumed Bud was still on guard and dismissed concern for the T-800. About 2 minutes later, his auditory sensors came online, the cyborg flinching as the sound of Linda's voice came rushing into his cortex like thunder. -"Get up Thomson, someone sabotaged the engine and we can't fix it," Linda said impatiently. The T-830 scrambles to the open panel behind the turret fire-control unit, and quickly assesses the pair of engines. "So what am I looking at here...?"

The endoskeleton asked, as he tediously probed at the pair of electric turbines, noting the abnormal surface-temperatures of both outer casings. "I woke up to the Tiger's guns, one of the hostiles managed to get the door open while we were asleep. He seemed interested in our computer network. I killed him before he could escape with one of our hard-drives, then kinda got a little hungry if you know what I mean..." The girl winked, as Thomson looked at her in reply, -"My sensors aint as good as Buds, but from what I can tell, something fried the terminal-boxes on both turbines, looks like they uprooted the floor-grates and shorted the power transformers with a metal pipe. Bastards work fast, no doubt they had a background in engineering. They knew exactly what to hit, this system is toast... And let's not forget the cracked differential case..." -"Shit!" Linda yelled, throwing a punch into the hull and causing one of the overhead light-panels to flicker.

-"_Did you call 'any' of this into Gorman...? I know he's an asshole, but he's still good for when you need something…_" Thomson comments, his voice echoing as he snaked his way into the crawlspace beneath the floor lining. "The lieutenant isn't answering his radio. In fact, other than our squad, I can't seem to raise anyone from our F.O.B on coms or GPS... It's like they just disappeared..." Linda replied in a worrisome tone. The T-830 emerges from a floor-grate towards the front of the chamber, seeming to struggle with something wedged in the crawlspace. -"We'll then, we have no choice but to return to base. We have to assume the lieutenant and the rest of the marines have been compromised, and mount a rescue effort." The endoskeleton said, standing to his feet. -"How the hell are we gonna do that..?" Cheri butted in, leaning around the doorframe and squinting into the poorly lit engine bay. "You, my little pincushion, should not be up and about after such a serious procedure. By the way, where the hell is Poe...?" The Terminator asked, getting up and peering out the doorframe.

"Poe...!" He called as Cheri replied, "He's on the roof keeping watch." -"Poe!" The cyborg barked again as the Yautja called, "Whadoya want..!? I'm keepin watch for bogies..!" -"Oh okay, just makin sure...! Don't eat a Chinaman n' go runnin off with the shits again...! I'm sure Maggie doesn't wanna get 2-Pac'd by another fuckin A.A gun...!" The T-830 called back in a patronizing tone. _"Eat-it ya broke-dick can-opener...!"_ The Predator retorts in an equally patronizing tone, as Demetri and Linda fall back in laughter. "I love this kid, he's got jokes-, I think he should just behead Gorman for getting captured and then take the reigns as the new lieutenant." Thomson snickers, gently nudging Cheri with his elbow as she fought the urge to laugh as well. "Okay guys, all bullshit aside, the hardware between the hydrogen fuel cells and the turbines is toast for the most part. The passenger side turbine looks fine, but the driver's side is seized up, likely due to the fall yesterday." The Terminator says, sliding the dislodged floor-grate into place with his foot.

"Best case scenario we'll have to unbolt the motor-mounts and u-joints on turbine 1, toss it, and limp back to base on half the power." The endoskeleton adds, taking a knee in front the engine bay. -"Can't we machine new parts...?" Linda asked, leaning her weight on the gun-rack. "Machining new parts is a no-go without blueprints..." The T-830 said as Cheri began to fidget and twitch. "You mean you didn't commit the design to memory...?" Linda mocked, tossing a crumpled piece of paper at his skull. "I stole these turbines from one of Skynet's HK tank-factories a couple years back, a little before I met you. At this point I don't think it's worth our time due to our current predicament." The cyborg replied, glancing at Maggie as she slept peacefully on the troop bench, left of the door. "Wait, so you just wanna leave the engine here...? I thought that co-axial configuration required _both_ engines to function...?" Linda asked, now a bit puzzled. "The engines are mounted on the axles in such a way, that in the event of a failure, one of them can be removed, while the other still drives the system. This differential is a Detroit-Allison locker, it'll turn both tires as long as the u-joints are reconnected "

The T-830 replied, noting Maggie's normalized skin temperature. "Our biggest problems are the fried transformers under the floor-grates, without them, power cannot be regulated and the hydrogen cells will likely burn the turbine after a time." Thomson concluded, as the group fell silent. -_"Well how long will the motor last in an overpowered state...?"_ Maggie murmured as she awoke from cold sleep, the bandages around her head obstructing her view of the group. Kicking the engine-door shut, Thomson replies, "As far as I know, the turbine's internals are made of a hyper-alloy, with a half-percentage of Coltan ore, the same stuff I'm made of... Basically it can sit in a pool of burning jet-fuel for 3 weeks and be reused. However, the bearings in the shaft are only made of 550 stainless, the casing isn't too tough either. We'll be taking a gamble without at least one working transformer, and we aint all gonna fit in the tank..." -"Vysrat'sa..." Demetri grunts, rubbing the back of his head. "What are ya _awe_-_fuckin_ about out here..?" The endoskeleton asks, leaning out the doorframe as he looked down on the kneeling giant.. The Nemesis hangs his head low, letting out a deep chuckle before adding, "it's about my eighteen wheeler... I was going to suggest we use it to sneak back to base undetected but... It was swept up in the wake of the Cirrus launch back in 98' " The giant replied as Maggie began to undue her bandages.

Linda stared at him blankly, starting to say something but being cutoff as Thomson adds, -"actually, if I recall correctly, you gave it to Dravis, it got hit by a tram, _then_ _blown up with an H-bomb_..." -"don't remind me..." The Nemesis replied, Maggie cranking herself to a sitting position-, her eyes widening as she stared at the endoskeleton in shock. The nurse then glances at Cheri, and then back at Thomson again. -"That's a uh..." Maggie is at a loss of words, Thomson adding, "If the first words out of your mouth start with 'bionic,' and end with 'man,' I think I might bite off your index finger." The cyborg said in a sarcastic tone. "Maggie, you don't have to be afraid, I know he's kind of a-, 'scary'-looking robot, but him and his crew-, are here to help." Cheri smiled as the nurse clambered closer to the T-830 in awe, taken aback by his range of motion. -"He moves so much like a person..." She murmured, timidly running her fingers under his cheekbones.

"Awe-, she called you a cute widow-woebot." Linda teased as Thomson's LEDs slowly swiveled to face Cheri. "The next time you fall asleep, I'm ripping your stitches... Now you've got 'her' makin fun-a me!" He adds with a wheezy chuckle as Demetri chimes in, -"He's an obsolete model... Like Macintosh Power-Pc's from the 90s... What a skatul'a..."-(pussy)- -"Ruin my moment in the sun and mark my words hulk, I will crash the Auriga on you..." The cyborg retorted, flicking yet another spent 20mm casing at the giant's head. "Well-, I guess if you wanted to hurt me, you wouldn't have bandaged my head... -You _were_ kidding about the index finger thing right...?" Maggie asked as the cyborg gave a shrug in reply, -"sweetheart you are too damn sexy to have yo index finga bitten-off. I'll make you a deal, call me a bionic-man again, and I'll bite Demetri's index finger off." -"I've got a finger you can bite-off you little zadubenec..."-(dickhead)- The giant retorted as Thomson tossed his head back in laughter, "awe poop, I walked right into that one... I suppose if I had a butt-crack you'd break your foot off in it too right?" The endoskeleton shot back as Maggie shook with laughter, despite the situation with her niece.

"Hey wait a minute..." The nurse said, standing up and peering down at the Nemesis as he fanned himself with the bill of his hat. "I know that voice, stand up..." She said, stepping out of the troop-carrier to face the giant. "You're the Merkava victim I bumped into at the hospital..." The nurse said, her expression softening with pity as she looked over his goulash features. -"You are incorrect Ms. O'Connor, Demetri was abducted as a child and placed into the Nemesis program by the Umbrella Corporation." Bud chimed in, as he rounded the back-corner of the APC with his Smartgun. Cheri's face brightens with excitement as she rips the sunglasses off the T-800's face, surprised to find a pair of brown eyes staring back at her. Bud is a bit puzzled by the girl's behavior as she lifts up his undershirt and probes along his abdomen. "I don't understand, where's all the metal...?" She asked, probing the biker's hairline as she explored further. "I'm a cybernetic organism, metal endoskeleton surrounded by living tissue..."

The T-800 replies setting his weapon on the ground. "A what...?" The girl asks as Thomson interrupts, -"he'll explain later, right now we need to get this turbine off the rig. Linda and Maggie.? -you two should be able to handle the task with those socket-sets I brought out." -"I don't know the first thing about being a mechanic..." The nurse objected in a nervous tone. -"it's easy cuteness, all your doin is removing all the bolts on the turbine marked '1' Linda can coach you." The T-830 reassured, turning to the Nemesis. "Demetri, we need you on watch with that Stinger-launcher of yours incase Stark's finest show up, the APC's guns will be offline while the girls tinker with the system, so you're their go-to guy for defense." -"Easy as pie comrade... I'll head up to the roof and relieve that little koh'ut-blaster." The giant replied, tipping his hat to Maggie, before starting across the small courtyard.

"Umbrella may have taken his body, but not his charm. That voice..." The nurse commented, flustered as she headed inside to start on the turbine. "-Me, Bud and Poe are gonna take the tank back to that industrial park uptown, I saw some heavy machinery in one of the factories that might have the parts we're lookin for, wheels up guys..." The endoskeleton finished, starting towards the tank on the far side of the courtyard. -"Cheri, you need to rest while the antibiotics in your system take effect, you'll need your strength if the camp falls under attack. Take this..." Bud says, handing the girl a stainless-steel handgun. -"It's huge..." The girl murmured as she fiddled with the weapon. "It's a .45 Longslide with laser sight and two-phase trigger. First phase activates the laser, second phase fires the weapon..." The Terminator said guiding her hands around the weapon. "It's loaded with hollow point rounds, the magazine holds eight, aim for the head..." The T-800 concluded, Cheri blushing as he ran to catch up with Thomson.

Now inside the Tiger Tank, gazing at the display screen, the T-830 sat patiently, snickering as Bud climbed up the front of the hull. "You know she likes you right...?" The endoskeleton asked as the T-800 pulled the forward hatch shut. "Everybody likes me..." The Terminator replied, starting to undo the journal-latches on the hull machinegun. "No I mean romantically Bud..." The endoskeleton replied, admiring his desert eagle as he leaned back in the driver-seat. "I'm a Terminator, I'm incapable of returning the same affections... I'm neither anatomically compatible. Your hypothesis is illogical..." The T-800 replied, gently sliding the MG-3 out of its journals and lifting its receiver-cover for inspection. "Dude-, don't be such an Eeyore, you're a learning computer, that means you can potentially learn 'anything...' Besides, you don't need an erection to please a woman..." The T-830 replied as faint thud is heard from the ceiling.

"I don't follow..." Bud drones, closing his weapon's receiver cover and setting the gun aside. "You've got fingers, elbows, lips, a tongue and a chin... Trust me, you're anatomically compatible..." Thomson replied with a snicker, sliding his handgun under the navigation console. -"Hey Poe..!? You commin in or what..!?" The endoskeleton called through the hull, canting his head to one side. _"I'll ride fireman...!"_ The Yautja replied, pounding the hull twice as to give the driver the all-clear. Thomson brought the turbines online, activating the cloaking field before putting the vehicle in motion. The Tiger tank crept out of the alley unnoticed, pivoting its turret in both directions before merging with the light civilian traffic and speeding off to the industrial park.


End file.
